Like a Candle in the Dark
by Marius blowthebarricade
Summary: Enjolras had warned him about drinking and driving. He said it would be the end of him. The end of everything. Still, never once did Grantaire imagine it would really end this way. Never once did he even begin to think fate and God - if there was a God - could be so cruel. So terrible. Yet it had happened. Now it was too late. There was no way to fix what he had broken.
1. Sparks of Fire

**Firstly, I got the idea for this story when I was reading "Collisions," an awesome one-shot by shadows-of-1832, so thank you very much to this author! If any of you have not read that fanfiction, please do! It is a beautiful story, and it isn't very long. So read away! You won't regret it!**

 **Secondly, this is the first modern AU I have ever written. Look at me, moving up in the world! Almost two hundred years, actually! ;) The amazing writers in this fandom have inspired me to be brave and finally try something new. Thank you all very much.**

 **I know that I am writing some longer fanfictions right now, and I promise they are still my top priority. But I got this idea and thought it best to get it down while it was still fresh in my mind. But this still will be pretty short and should not take up too much time. And hopefully, I will be able to post the next chapter of "Between Love and Loss" this weekend also, if not this weekend by next weekend for sure! I am sorry I have not posted anything in so long, but I have been very busy.**

 **Lastly, thank you all so much for reading this. I could not do it without you! Please, let me know what you think!**

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CHAPTER I

~SPARKS OF FIRE~

 _Enjolras had warned him about drinking and driving. He said it would be the end of him. The end of everything. Still, never once did Grantaire imagine it would really end this way. Never once did he even begin to think fate and God - if there was a God - could be so cruel. So terrible. Yet it had happened. Now it was too late. There was no way to fix what he had broken..._

 _..._

...It was already late in Paris, France, but the city was far from falling asleep. The waxing moon, only a few days away from its fullness and glory, was a silvery lantern in the sky: a dark navy tapestry embroidered with tiny white diamonds that sparkled and winked as they looked down over the earth like angels. The stars were too many to count. Together, with the moon as well, these celestial beings bathed the earth in the veiled luminosity of night. The candles of the night are not so bright, or fiery, or blinding as the lights of the day; the sun's glare is so mighty that it can burn the eye and steal a man's sight. Not the moon. Her light is softer. Gentle. She casts a soft gleam, silver made into translucent beams, upon the earth, and the creatures of the mortal world can bask in the moonlight and bathe in its strange yet beautiful mystery. They can sleep on the earth under a blanket if stars.

However, Paris was not sleeping tonight. It was a warm night in early June, that time which falls between the end of spring and the start of summer. The sky was clear, the curtain open and the stars on display. The weather was beautiful, a perfect display of a summer night. The air was clean and pure, and to breathe it in was to inhale a taste of freedom. A warm breeze blew through the city, stirring the trees and the leaves, which whispered and gossiped in blissful excitement, stirring the joy and the glee in the heart of Paris's young.

The date was June 5. In the year 1832, on this very day, the citizens of Paris took to the streets in rebellion. Barricades arose all throughout the city. Sparks of Revolution erupted with the sparks of muskets. Sparks of fire. Outside this very building a barricade was raised, and within this very building several young men, students, were killed. For years, until the wooden floorboards were ripped up and replaced with artificial tiles, their blood stained the floor. On this day, but in 1832, a calamity assaulted Paris's youths and destroyed them when they were still children. On this day, death came too soon…

Almost two hundred years later, this date held extreme significance to the youthful students of Paris, because it was the last day of school. Their university was over for the year, and at last they could relax and enjoy another carefree summer. Revelry and excitement coursed through the city in such a way that a traveler passing through might have thought France to have announced the victorious end of a great war. At least, a traveler might have thought so if he passed through the Café Musain (which is, regrettably, not a historical memorial site today but a tavern "enhanced," so they say, from the 1800s cafe to a modern McDonald's).

A large crowd was gathered in the McMusian tonight, and the largest group was, not surprisingly, a celebrating army of students. They gathered in the back room of the café—as if to pay tribute and respect to the brave young men, not so unlike themselves, who died fighting for freedom in this very building, this very room, to honor the heroes that the world had forgotten, to silently declare loyalty to a Revolution that never truthfully ended, these boys still called this place "the Café." They still called it "the Musain." They still gathered in that back room where less than two hundred years ago another company of students, rebels, gathered and whispered triumphant cries of freedom and of Revolution.

Just like in 1832, these students came together to talk and take action about injustice, and oppression, and violated liberties, and corrupt governments, and God-less leaders, and helpless citizens. They were the voice that cried out for those who could not speak: the unborn, the unclothed, the uncared-for, the unloved, the wounded, the sick, the helpless, the heroes that the world forgets, ignores, despises, and unjustly accuses of treachery. The selfish world calls its soldiers, its protectors, its own children! villains for fighting against his country's enemies; the selfish world calls a police officer a monster for arresting a murderer; however, at the same time, the selfish world imprisons a man who has done nothing wrong; the selfish world feeds the lazy and turns its back on the innocent who need help the most. This group of rebel students fought against these injustices. They fought for change. They hosted speeches, and rallies, and marches, and protests... by the end of next spring, they planned to host a rebellion. Tonight, however, they were not here to talk of revolution. Tonight, they were here to celebrate the end of the school year and the start of the summer. They were here to enjoy one last night as a family and then to say goodbye.

Of this company of Friends, Feuilly, Bossuet, Bahorel, and Marius planned to stay in Paris throughout the summer. Feuilly because he was a working man not a student, and he worked and lived in Paris; Bossuet because his parents had died, he had lost his inherited fortune, and Paris was a place as good as any to make a living, or if not a living a life; Bahorel because he was so thrilled by the rogue life of independence and excitement that he only could find when he was in this city, and he was unwilling to give that up; and of course Marius, because his rich grandfather lived in Paris and, even if his grandfather lived a thousand miles away from Paris, because he was unwilling to leave his girlfriend, Cosette, whom he was so deeply in love with that he would have given her anything, whom he seemed to think royalty, a princess, a goddess, an angel. Courfeyrac, Joly, Jehan, Combeferre, and Enjolras would return to the homes of their parents for the summer.

Grantaire was still undecided about what he would do this summer. His parents wanted him home, he knew, but he really did not want to go home. So for now, he would stay in Paris and wait to deal with the elders until they sent him a stream of angry phone calls and voicemails (His parents didn't know how to text or use any type of social media. He told his friends that one night and shared a laugh with some them; but Enjolras frowned and informed them that not only did he not know how to text, or use social media, or Skype, or FaceTime, or Snapchat, or any of those ridiculous inventions of the twenty-first century, but he also thought them a foolish waste of time and a cause of many unnecessary problems) and ceased to pay for his rent. For now, he was content simply to sit back, enjoy what little his life had to enjoy, and drink a beer.

These rebel students always gathered in the backroom, just like the rebel students of 1832. This is where they could conspire in secrecy and, hidden in unseen shadows, advocate for the Revolution. This is also where they could smuggle alcohol into McDonald's and drink it unnoticed, a habit of Grantaire's that Enjolras might have scorned above all his other sins.

"You have had enough to drink, Grantaire," Enjolras said darkly in a low and warning tone as he glared across the long table—rather, the two tables they pushed together in order to form one large enough to sit all of them—and fixed his icy blue eyes on the man who sat at the polar opposite end of it.

Grantaire, who was already working on his second large McDonald's coke cup, which was not filled with coke, laughed, and smirked, and brought the straw to his lips once more. "Lighten up, Enjolras," he chimed smoothly after swallowing another large mouthful of beer down his throat. "It's the first night of summer; do you think I'm not going to celebrate?" He pounded a hand noisily on the table top as if striking a drum in festivity and held up his cup. With loud whoops and cheers, Courfeyrac, Bahorel, and Bossuet, all who were considered "party animals" on the college campus and all who were sharing in Grantaire's celebrations tonight, raised their own large McDonald's not-coke cups together for a toast.

Enjolras, whose arms were crossed over his chest and his red button down shirt, scoffed. "If you insist on intoxicating yourselves," he snapped with disdain, "then you best do it somewhere where alcohol is actually _allowed_. You can conceal the drink in your cup, but you will not be able to conceal your drunkenness when they find you passed out on the floor tomorrow morning."

"It won't be morning, Enj," Courfeyrac corrected matter-of-factly, but he was struggling to suppress a smirk as he said it. "Only drive-thru is open twenty-four-seven, and the Musain doesn't have a drive thru. It closes at midnight… or something like that."

Enjolras checked the gold watch around his wrist. It was fifteen of eleven now. Good. That gave these idiots only another hour to get themselves drunk. Then again, he realized grimly, after they got kicked out of this place, they would probably go off, find a real bar, and start on some heavy stuff. Beer was pretty light for especially Grantaire but also Bahorel and Bossuet and even Courfeyrac.

"I like your watch, Enjolras," said Bossuet with a grin and a teasing air. An expression of annoyance on his face, Enjolras raised his eyes and looked across the table. "Is it real gold?"

"Yes," Enjolras muttered after a moment, unsure if he should answer the question for fear that he would fall victim to some embarrassing joke. "It is not pure gold, but it has a real gold coating on it."

"Really!" exclaimed Courfeyrac. If this was indeed a prank of some sort, he seemed to be on the same page as Bossuet. Grantaire and Bahorel were also grinning as they watched. It was as if whatever they were drinking infiltrated their minds and made them think the same things, laugh at the same things, understand jokes that nobody else found humorous. Courfeyrac stood abruptly to his feet, despite the fact that Enjolras was sitting right next to him, and snatched Enjolras's wrist in both of his hands. "My, and it's not even digital!" he overdramatically cried as he held Enjolras's hand in front of his face to examine the watch. He looked up to meet Enjolras's skeptical eyes and not-amused expression. Courfeyrac smiled. As if in true bewilderment he added, "I did not know they still made those things."

While Courfeyrac and his partners in crime snickered immaturely, Enjolras rolled his eyes. He pulled his wrist out of Courfeyrac's grasp and crossed his arms close to himself once again. "It was a gift from my grandfather," he said shamelessly. "While he was alive, men knew how to tell time _without_ relying on numbers to tell time for them."

"Fair enough," agreed Courfeyrac as he sat down once again, and the students resumed their joyous and carefree chatter.

At the head of the table, with his beautiful eyes of blue-steel, blazing fire and frozen ice, his fair skin, soft and pure like freshly fallen snow, his curls of gold like a halo of flame around his handsome face, clean-cut and formal, dressed nicely in a red button down, with sleeves tight on biceps, and black pants (as if school was still in, his friends had teased him) was the leader, the chief, Enjolras. To his right was his right hand, his second-in-command, his most trusted advisor, best friend, his brother, Combeferre. Beside him was Jehan and Feuilly, both of them classily dressed and groomed like the other two.

Next to Feuilly was one of the three women in the company of all of these men. She was a very pretty girl: long blonde hair, huge blue eyes, red lips, fair skin, and a face like an angel. She wore an attractive but modest summer dress, pale pink in color, and pink flowers were braided into her golden hair. Her entire being glowed with purity and innocence. She was constantly smiling, and giggling, and bubbling with joyous ecstasy. She was not drinking, but the summer itself and her love for the man beside her was the drug going to her head and making her blind to all else. This man was Marius.

He was too entranced by Cosette to pay much heed to anything else around him. He paid little attention to his friends. He paid no attention to the girl on his left. He did not even notice, it seemed, that she was there.

She was not a student. She didn't go to college. Her parents could not afford it. Even if they could have, they would not have been so generous as to send their money on their daughter. She was the exact opposite of Cosette. She had dark skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. Her face was pretty but dirty. It was obvious that she had not taken a shower in many days (her parents hadn't paid the bill, and their water was shut off… that was about a year ago). Her entire body was dirty, unwashed and unclean. Her hands were smeared in dirt, black grime had gathered under her fingernails, and there were visible calluses and cuts on her palms. Her skin was rough, tanned, burned, scarred, bruised in some places. Her long almost-black locks were pulled back in a loose, falling-out bun in order to hide the knots and tangles in her hair. Her clothing was minimal and in great contrast to Cosette's. Her slime frame, her tight muscles—quite impressive for a girl—and her sensual body were on display for all to see. She wore a skin-tight tank top, black in color, that left her shoulders, arms, upper back, and much of her chest bare, low and V-shaped on her chest, even with her bra line, displaying a bit too much of her breasts. Her tight jean-shorts were defiantly _short_ , leaving almost her entire thighs uncovered, and even still they had large tears in them, showing more skin. Most young men looked at her with lust and desire, and most "respectable" people looked at her, glared, and muttered something that included the word "slut." What they did not know, however: this girl did not choose to dress the way she did. These clothes, and a few articles similar to these, were all she had. Her father was unwilling to buy her anything else. Her shorts were full length pants when she first bought them and without a single hole. But every year, it seemed, they tore and frayed more at the bottoms, and she had to cut off another three inches of stringy tatters, until the jeans were as short as they were now, barely covering her rear. As for her shirt: this was her undershirt. She used to have real clothes, but when he got desperate for money her father sold them away. He did not care if she shivered in the winter. He did not care if people called his daughter a slut. In fact, to his advantage, her lack of clothing made more men offer a price for her.

Next to Éponine, at the end of the table, directly opposite of Enjolras, with as much possible distance between them, which was needless to say Enjolras's doing, was Grantaire and his gang. All night, and for the last several weeks, with passionate efforts, with all of his wit and charm, Grantaire had been trying very hard to win over Éponine. Grantaire, a charmer and a womanizer, was highly accomplished in the art of seducing women. Yet Éponine knew him, and she knew his game too well. Thus far he had been unsuccessful at winning her heart, and she was still pitifully in love with Marius. It was useless: Marius was deeply in love with Cosette, and it was clear to everyone this was not going to change. If Éponine really fooled herself into believing that he might change his mind one day, then, just like those who put their faith in an invisible God, Grantaire had to commend her for her faith. However, the way he saw it, he was a much better match for her anyway. Marius was ignorant, and innocent, and pure, and respectable, and honorable, and moral, and well… Grantaire and Éponine were not.

Tonight, Grantaire was in a black leather jacket, a faded green T-shirt, ripped up and fraying jeans with holes in the knees, dirt stains at the bottoms, and a pack of cigarettes in his front pocket. His long black hair was a wild mess of curls and knots around his head. His suntanned face had not been shaven in almost a month and was covered in coarse hair. His eyes were darkened and reddened from expressive consumption of alcohol, which Enjolras could smell from the other side of the table.

To Grantaire's left was Bahorel, who had a rough look about him, auburn hair, brown eyes, sunburn, and a farmer's tan; decked out in boots, faded blue jeans, a camouflage shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a camouflage hat; when he turned his head to the left side, one could see the tattoo on his neck. He grew up in the country with his parents, working hard in the fields for crops, hunting and fishing for meat, gambling and drinking in bars at the end of the day, and usually starting a fight or two by the end of the night. He could drink whisky like Grantaire and moonshine that impressed even the drunkard. Of all of the students, Bahorel was the only one who gave Grantaire great competition when it came to gambling, fighting, and even drinking.

Beside Bahorel was Bossuet, who was laughing at nearly everything that had been said that night, even things that were not meant to be funny. He was already considerably drunk. Next to him was his best pal, Joly, a medical student and a hypochondriac who had a bad cold but a jubilant spirit nonetheless, and beside Joly was a very attractive woman in her every-day-attire of a tight-fitting dress that highlighted her amorous figure, five-inch heels, jewelry, necklaces, bracelets, jewels and rings, carefully applied makeup, as well as perfectly polished and manicured finger and toenails. She had fiery red hair, the body of a goddess, the shrewd face of a diva, and the eyes of a fortuneteller. When she looked at a man, it was as if her gaze—sharp, precise, and lethal like the blade of a sword—penetrated into his very soul. It was as if she put him under a spell, and immediately he lost his heart for her. Her name was Musichetta, a name whispered amongst the young men of Paris as if it was made of pure gold. Like most boys their age, Bossuet and Joly were both in love with her. Although Bossuet had been the first of them to ask her on a date, she ended up with Joly. Bossuet was not surprised: with his habit of terrible luck, he could expect nothing else.

Purposely seating himself beside the gorgeous woman, scooting his chair as close to her as he possibly could without attracting the suspicions of her oblivious boyfriend—due to the vaguely amused, vaguely jaded looks she kept sending in his direction, it was quite evident to him that Musichetta knew exactly what he was doing, however she let it go with only a smirk—was Courfeyrac. A charming young man, a joker, a trickster, a pistol, a good man, and a great friend. He was the link between the wayward rascals like Grantaire and Bahorel at one end of the table and the well-mannered gentlemen like Enjolras and Combeferre at the other. He was the bond of friendship that held them all together… no matter how different they were alone.

"After the café closes," Courfeyrac was eagerly explaining to the rest of them, "Grantaire, Bahorel, and I plan on going to the bar." A conspicuous grunt of disapproval came from chair beside him. Ignoring it, he went on, "You all want to join us, I trust?"

"Of course!" Bossuet readily agreed. Making the decision for them without so much as a word of discussion, he added, "Joly and Musichetta will come too."

"Actually—" Joly started to protest, but Musichetta elbowed him in the side, and she smiled at him in a way that made it physically impossible to tell her no. For a moment, Joly forgot to breathe… which troubled him later, because he already had a nasty cold, and he was already coughing, and his breathing was already a bit off, and he was staying up later than he should have been, he really needed more rest, and he feared that he might further irritate his diseased lungs.

"Come on, Joly, it will be fun," said Musichetta, and he could do nothing but sigh and give in.

"Excellent!" said Courfeyrac. "And you, Jehan?"

"Um…" Jehan's face reddened, and he dropped his eyes as everyone's attention fell upon him. In that soft, gentle voice, he answered shyly as if afraid he would disappoint them, "I do not think so. I have to get up early tomorrow morning, and…"

"Oh, come on! It's our last night together! Don't spoil it!"

"I…" Jehan muttered, and for a moment Courfeyrac thought he would give in. He didn't. "…don't think I can."

It turned out that none of the others could either. Most of them, uninterested in the idea, found a delicate excuse and a polite way to refuse the offer. They said they had to get up early tomorrow, or they had to clean their dorms or flats, or they had other plans already. All of them except for Enjolras, who said very bluntly and a bit harshly, "I have better things to do than going to a bar and watching all of you intoxicate yourselves."

"You don't have to _watch_ , Enjolras," Grantaire said from across the table. "You can throw a few back, yourself, you know." As Enjolras's severe gaze landed upon him, Grantaire could not help but grin and chuckle. With a smirk, he added teasingly, "Have you ever been drunk before, Enjolras?"

"No, I have not," replied Enjolras with a note of pride rather than embarrassment in his bold voice. He straightened his body a little more and held his head a little higher. He heard them struggling to suppress their laughter, and he glared at Courfeyrac, skipped over Musichetta and Joly, and glared at the boys at the other end of the table.

"Well, then, you haven't _lived!_ " cried Grantaire with exaggerated drama for comical effect. "You do not know what you are missing! It's amazing." Leaning back in his chair, he smiled, kept his eyes fixed carefully on Enjolras, just waiting to see his reaction, and he mused, "It's better than a night in bed with a pretty woman… well not really… not at all actually, not even close, but I guess it doesn't matter, because you haven't done that either so—"

Enjolras's reaction was everything Grantaire could have hoped for.

"Enough, Grantaire!" Enjolras shouted in a panic, his eyes widening, his lungs sucking up a short gasp, his heartbeat increasing. His face was at once flushed in embarrassment and outrage. Enjolras, a respectable and virtuous man and, like Grantaire had recently broadcasted for everyone to know, a virgin, was extremely uncomfortable at the very mention of this topic, especially in the presence of three women. His eyes darted anxiously about the table, looking for his friend's reactions, ready to apologize for Grantaire's vulgar behavior. However, of the three girls, only Cosette was uncomfortable: her cheeks turned pink; she dropped her gaze and seemed to find the straw in her Styrofoam sweet tea cup—unlike the cups of most of the people present, it actually had tea in it—suddenly enthralling; she fixed her eyes on it as if hypnotized by the red and yellow stripes running down its sides and began to swirl it around in her drink, making noise with the ice. Musichetta, although trying to hide her grin with the back of her hand, trying unsuccessfully to make her laugh sound like a cough, was giggling with most of the boys. Éponine was indifferent, unbothered and un-amused. Marius looked a bit awkward, most because he saw that Cosette was embarrassed. Combeferre and Feuilly disapproved of the comment but merely sighed and shook their heads. Jehan smiled slightly, despite his blush and discomfort. Everyone else with blatantly smirking and laughing.

 _You should not say such things, especially in the presence of women! Apologize to the ladies at once!_ Enjolras was about to yell at the drunkard, but he hesitated, because he feared that speaking out might make this situation more awkward than it was already. Fortunately, the moment passed before he had a chance to address it, and it seemed to be forgotten.

"Courfeyrac, give Enjolras a drink," said Bahorel calmly, smiling as he reclined in his chair and sipped on his beer. "He's a little stressed. He needs it."

Laughing, Courfeyrac shoved his cup in Enjolras's face, forcing the straw toward his lips. His expression crumpling in displeasure, Enjolras jerked his head backward and pushed Courfeyrac away, pushing away the cup with his hand and Courfeyrac with his elbow. "No," he immediately refused even a sip. "Aside from the fact that drunkenness is a sin and a disgrace and I will have nothing to do with such insolence, I have to drive tonight—"

"It's only beer, Enjolras," Courfeyrac cut in. "It isn't that strong. It won't get you drunk."

"I mean, it might get _you_ drunk, Enjolras," laughed Bossuet loudly and obnoxiously. "You are not used to alcohol like the rest of us! Ha-ha!" This comment was very ironic, because, of all of them, Bossuet was the only who was already intoxicated.

Ignoring Bossuet entirely, Enjolras repeated himself, "I have to drive tonight." His expression remained as hard as stone and his decision not wavering for even a moment. Like a man of marble, he could not be penetrated. He could not be moved. "I don't want it."

"Suit yourself, then," said Grantaire with a shrug and a sigh. "You're the one missing out."

Enjolras rolled his eyes. He could have said so much to this alcoholic, but instead, for the sake of everyone else and for the sake of his own sanity, he let it go with only a grunt. He restrained his burning desire to open his mouth and turned this friendly gathering into a heated debate, which would certainly transform and quite quickly into a fiery argument.

"Well, then," said Courfeyrac after a moment, ending the silence before it could fully set over the friends. "No one but Bossuet and the lovebirds will be joining us?" He groaned and muttered sarcastically, "What a turn out."

Cosette bowed her face to stare at her hands folded in her lap, feeling a bit guilty that so few were going to the bar. A sudden idea occurred to her, and she looked up with abrupt perkiness. "Oh! I have an idea! Next weekend, Marius and I are going to Deauville Beach! It's only a few hours away; you all could come with us!" She had her own drink, but nonetheless, as if only because she could taste his lips on the plastic, she leaned across Marius and took a sip of his sprite—a gesture which, judging by the expression on her face, sickened Éponine to her very core. Grantaire could have sworn that he saw her shudder in revulsion.

"That would be fun," agreed Courfeyrac with a smile and a nod. He turned his eyes and snickered at Marius, who had remained silent but whose expression made it obvious that he had been hoping to take this vacation with _Cosette._ Only Cosette. Nonetheless, Marius was too polite to speak out about it or tell his friends that they wanted to go alone, so he looked a bit helplessly at the faces around the table and hoped they would refuse the offer.

Not noticing Marius's unhappiness, Cosette leaned forward excitedly in her chair and looked around him to beam at Éponine. "You can come too, Ponine!" she cried in delight as if she and this girl were best friends—which could not have been further from the truth. Well… perhaps not. Cosette might have become her best friend if Éponine would allow it. But she wouldn't. She wanted nothing to do with the rich, pure, beautiful young woman who stole from her the only treasure that she ever had: Marius.

"No thanks," muttered Éponine in her raspy and roughened voice, her cold and joyless tone. She had to try very hard to keep herself from scoffing, or rolling her eyes, or snapping something bitter and sardonic. Somehow, she managed to restrain herself. "I've got things to do."

"Oh." For some reason that Éponine could not fathom, unless of course it was all an act to impress her boyfriend, Cosette looked disappointed. "Maybe, next time then. We will have to plan ahead and find a weekend that you are free."

Éponine's face remained stony. Biting back her spite so that it would not show too clearly, she answered flatly, "I'm never free." Just as always, Cosette kept reaching out to her, and Éponine kept pushing her away.

Cosette closed her lips as her face fell. She did not seem to know how to reply to this remark. Marius spared her the trouble. "I'm sure we will work something out sooner or later," he said kindly. Éponine looked up, and her eyes met his. She gazed upon his handsome face and his gentle smile. With that simple smile, he disarmed her of her strength and her indignation. Everything. Her heart melted inside of her, and her anger and resentment disappeared from it, draining from her soul like flowing streams of melted ice running down a windowpane. For only those brief seconds, her spirit took wings and began to soar in false hope. Happiness. Love. Love that would never belong to her.

Then, still smiling at Éponine, as if to mock her—but of course this was not his real intension; he was so oblivious, so blind; he did not even realized that she loved him—Marius wrapped his arm around Cosette. The smile faded from Éponine's dry lips. The warmth faded from her dark eyes. The joy faded from her wretched soul.

Marius did not notice this. However, it seemed that Grantaire did, because hardly a second later, he attempted to casually snake his own arm around Éponine's waist and pull her toward him, but as soon as she became aware of what he was doing, she shook him off and sent a harsh glare in his direction. He smiled at her innocently. It was an innocent smile that was overflowing with guilt. She rolled her eyes so that he could see and turned her back to him.

It turned out, that Courfeyrac was wrong in his witty claims. The inside restaurant did not close at midnight, it closed at eleven o'clock. Less than fifteen minutes went by before the noisy group of college kids were told to leave. "I'm sorry," said the employee as he ushered them out the door and into the street, "but we have to close up."

"It is no trouble at all," brightly replied Enjolras, who seemed rather pleased about all of this, and who was not attempting to hide his eagerness to leave. He rose immediately from his seat and began to push his friends toward the exit. They embarked out into the street, the warmth of a blissful summer evening, the darkness of the night, and the red glow of the restaurant's lights. The black pavement was like the ground of a battlefield after the war has ceased: an ominous gravestone painted scarlet. In fact, aside from the new streets lamps, the traffic signs, the circular garden and water fountain put up in the intersection, the end of Rue Rambuteau, which was called Rue de la Chanvrerie in 1832, looked much the same as it did on the night of June 5 many years ago, after the fighting had ceased and the rebels counted their dead.

When they got outside, Grantaire immediately pulled a cigarette out of his front pocket and a lighter from his back pocket. Holding the roll of paper and tobacco in his mouth and the flame in his hand, shielding them both from the wind with his other hand, he lit the cigarette. Wispy threads of smoke, like serpents slithering through the sky, infiltrated the clean air, polluting its purity. At perhaps the worst possible moment, Enjolras stepped out of the café door behind him, almost bumping into Grantaire, who was standing very close—just as Grantaire was exhaling great lungfuls of smoke.

Enjolras's face withered in disgust and his body stiffened and immobilized—he even stopped breathing, which was probably intentional—as a gust of smoke like a blustery wind hit him in the face. A moment later, he was cringing at the foul odor, squinting as the smoke burned his eyes, and coughing as it, like an enemy army assaulting a fortress, rushed up his nose and down his throat, attempting to penetrate his lungs. He perceived that it was like inhaling fire.

At the sound of his coughing, almost gagging, Grantaire turned around. Accidently, another breath of smoke was blown, this time directly, into Enjolras's face. Enjolras choked. "Woops!" said Grantaire. He stepped quickly backward, pulling his cigarette away from Enjolras, giving the boy space to breathe. "Sorry, Enj," he said sincerely, but at the same time he was struggling to withhold his laughter.

Enjolras, with a very disgruntled look on his stern face, said nothing but, ignoring the chuckles emitting from the students around him, walked pointedly past Grantaire and took his place beside his friend, his best, responsible, and _sober_ friend, Combeferre.

Still grinning, Grantaire turned his back to Enjolras, trying to hide his laughter from him, and said to the others, "Come on, guys. We're going over to the bar now. Who needs a ride? I can drive you."

"No you cannot!" Enjolras exclaimed in outrage and terror. He rounded on Grantaire as if the madman had pulled a gun and was aiming it at all of his friends, threatening to murder them. Enjolras strode a few bold steps away from Combeferre and stood before the drunkard. He scoffed at the stench of the smoke once again. "Are you insane!? You have been _drinking,_ Grantaire! You cannot drive!"

"I'm fine," Grantaire blew him off with a wave of the hand, as if this suggestion was the senseless concern of a child who is afraid of the dark. "I'm not drunk."

"Not as drunk as you will be before the end of the night," Enjolras agreed censoriously. His brows were angled angrily over his smoldering eyes, and there was a harsh, lethal, edge in his voice like the sharpened blade of a dagger. "But you have been drinking, and not only is it illegal to drink and drive but it also endangers people's lives."

"It's fine, Enjolras. I'm not drunk."

"I do not care how drunk you are. You have been drinking, and now you plan to drive—"

"I'm used to driving like this. I do it all of the time."

A look of hatful scorn came over Enjolras's marble face, and he glared at Grantaire with contempt greater still. Grantaire looked at this man, whom he admired, and looked up to, and cared about so greatly, the only person that he believed in, that he would die for, and Enjolras's harsh gaze pierced his heart like a knife. Enjolras was the only one whom he would have wanted to make proud, and Enjolras hated him. It hurt. But by this point in their friendship—which was in truth not a friendship at all, because as much as Grantaire admired Enjolras, Enjolras did not think of Grantaire as a friend; Enjolras despised him—Grantaire was used to it. Enjolras wielded the whip, and he took each blow silently, biting his tongue to keep himself from crying out.

"One day," warned Enjolras in a low, dangerous, and ominous tone, in a voice like the doctor's when he comes out to tell the family that the victim has been lost, "you are going to end up killing yourself. Or worse, someone else. If you survive, you will not be able to live with yourself."

"Enjolras," Combeferre muttered, when he knew that Enjolras had gone too far, when he saw the bleeding wounds of hurt come into Grantaire's eyes. He put a hand on Enjolras's shoulder, and that was enough to silently say, _Enough_. Enjolras obeyed. Turning to Grantaire, Combeferre offered a compromise, "Let's let Bahorel drive, alright, Grantaire?"

"Bahorel has been drinking too," grumbled Grantaire.

"Not as much as you have," said Enjolras indifferently, his arms crossed over his chest and his handsomely dimpled chin raised. He looked down on Grantaire.

"Yeah, sure, I'll drive," said Bahorel, already halfway across the street and heading toward a camo hunting truck that was parked parallel (and probably illegally) on the side of the road. The vehicle was small for a truck and only had two seats of worn and dirt-stained fabric, a driver's and a passenger's; it was thin and low to the ground, but it had lots space in the open bed. There was a large black sticker of a buck's skull across the tailgate, a small image of a riffle's silhouette in the lower right-hand corner of the windshield, and a pair of antlers resting on the dash. "Hey, boys, let's go! I'm driving!" he called to the others, and Courfeyrac, Bossuet, Joly, and Musichetta climbed into the back of the truck on top of more camouflage: coats, blankets, blind netting, gear that the non-hunters did not have a name for.

"Musichetta, please don't sit on the edge!" Joly cried in anxiety. He fearfully seized her slender waist, pulled her closer to him, and clung to her, afraid that she would lose her balance and fall.

"Don't worry, Joly," she said with a smirk. "I'll be alright."

"I would feel better if you sat down _inside_ the back."

"Let her be," said Courfeyrac as he sat in the truck next to the place where Musichetta was sitting on the tailgate. He became eyelevel with her thighs. Grinning, he grabbed a tender hold on one of her glamorous legs. "We'll hold onto her."

"Alright," Joly grudgingly agreed, and he knelt down by Musichetta's side, the side opposite of Courfeyrac. He wrapped both of his arms around her and held on desperately, practically hugging her as they prepared to drive.

From the front seat, Bahorel turned the key, started the engine, and put the truck in gear. He looked out the open window and called across the street. "You coming, Grantaire?"

"I'll meet you all there," he replied.

Enjolras groaned as it became apparent that Grantaire was going to be driving tonight after all. "You will not be taking your motorcycle, I hope?"

"Nah, I brought my truck," said Grantaire. He also had a truck. It was bigger than Bahorel's, faster, stronger, bulkier, harder to maneuver. Enjolras nodded. This made him feel a small bit better, because a drunken accident on a motorcycle was as good as a bullet to the head. At least if Grantaire crashed in this huge truck, he had a better chance of surviving.

As Bahorel pulled off and his truck—the windows down, the radio blaring, and the students loudly laughing in the back—and disappeared past a corner and into the night, the rest of the friends made their way around to back of the building, where their vehicles were _supposed_ to be parked. Like a man determined not to waste even a second of valuable time, Enjolras approached his little red car, unlocked the door, slid into the driver's seat, closed the door, and started the engine. Combeferre got into the passenger's seat beside him, and Jehan and Feuilly climbed into the back. Grantaire hauled himself up into the high seat of his black truck. Marius and Cosette got into Marius's white, scratch-less, luxury Volvo. Éponine started off in the other direction, walking through the darkness alone.

"Hey, Éponine!" Marius called after her, as he rolled down the window with a press of a button on the steering wheel. As if entranced by the sound of his voice, Éponine stopped and turned around. Through the open window of his car, she saw Marius's adorable smile, and not far behind him Cosette was smiling at her from the passenger's seat. "Do you want a ride? There's plenty of room."

"No thanks," she refused their hospitality once again. "I can walk."

"It's late," Marius protested, as if he really cared about her. "You shouldn't walk around by yourself this late at night. There are maniacs around. It is dangerous for a young girl to be alone on the streets."

Éponine laughed at him. It was not a joyful laugh. There was not a hint of joy about it. "You don't need to worry about me, Marius," she said, and it was hard to decipher her voice: was it cold? Bitter? Resentful? Did she blame Marius for what she was about to say? "I live on the streets."

Before he could reply, she turned and she was gone. Like a shadow, she vanished into the darkness.

She had not gotten far, hardy down one street and around one corner, when danger did assault her. She watched her feet, clad in black boots that were meant to be worn with pants, not shorts, but she had no pants to wear them with and these were the only shoes she owned. She tried to block out the hurricane of emotions colliding inside of her like a tornado. Hatred, anger, spite, jealousy, envy, regret, sadness, despair, indifference, hope, wondering, wishing… It was all so confusing: the past, the future, the possibilities, the things she could have done and did not do, the way things might have been… If only…

She was crossing the street, her mind possessed by this tumultuous confliction, when a huge beast of black metal, invisible in the shadows, sprang forward like a panther pouncing out from the darkness.

Éponine's heart jolted in terror. She threw herself backward.

For a moment, she was certain that the car was going to hit her. In that fraction of a second, she saw her past and her inevitable future flash through her mind, appearing before her eyes as clearly as if she were looking into the glass ball of a fortuneteller. In less than a moment, she would be bleeding in the middle of the road. Bleeding. Dying. She would be dying in the street, in the darkness, all alone.

She should have listened to Marius.


	2. Burning Heart

**I cannot thank you all enough for your feedback, and support, and encouragement! Thank you so much for continuing to read this story. It means so much to me!**

 **Let me take a moment to say something about Les Mis ships: Why the heck don't more people ship Grantaire/Eponine?** **I feel like they are so perfect for each other, they are two of _Les Mis_ 's most popular characters, and hardly anyone pairs them together. Why, I don't know. **

**Of course, I love Enjolnine (as a lot of you know), but Enjolras and Eponine are complete opposites, which makes the ship very interesting; however, Grantaire and Eponine actually have _a lot_ in common if you just stop to think about it for a minute. (The book even suggests that Eponine might have been an alcoholic.) Again, I love Enjolnine, but if we are going off the canon characters, I think it is far more likely that Eponine and Grantaire would end up in a relationship than her and Enjolras... or Enjolras and anyone besides "Patria" for that matter. Grantaire is a womanizer and he's had a ton of mistresses, and Eponine definitely is not pure either. To be perfectly honest—besides actual canon ships** — **I think Grantine/Eponine is the most likely of all.**

 **So what this all comes down to: Yes, there is a little bit of Grantaire/Eponine coming up. If you like that idea, excellent! If not, I apologize, and maybe I can change your opinion before this story is over! ;)**

 **(One more note that I forgot to include before the last chapter: The Cafe Musain, where there really was a battle in 1832, is really a McDonald's today.)**

 **Thanks again, everybody!**

* * *

CHAPTER II

~BURNING HEART~

The truck screamed as the driver slammed on the breaks, and the large tires slid to a sudden halt.

It would not have hit her. Even had she not moved, she would not have been hit. However, the car—the truck—came close enough to leave her terrified, her heart pounding, and her limbs trembling. Even after the vehicle had stopped and she knew that she was not going to die tonight, her heart slammed violently and painfully inside of her chest, thrashing about like a helpless animal caught in a hunter's trap, a tiny mouse caught in the coils of a snake. The snake is charming, and he is deceptive. He is lethal. This is how he takes his prey.

Éponine looked wide-eyed through the open window of the truck, across the passenger's seat, which was closest to her, and she saw a familiar face smirking out at her from behind the wheel. "Hey!" he said brightly as if nothing was wrong, as if he had not almost run her over. Pleased with her reaction and the petrified expression on her face, he grinned mischievously and his eyes sparked with impish satisfaction. At once, it became obvious to her that he pulled in front of her purposely, perhaps to talk to her, or perhaps merely for the thrill of scaring her almost to death.

Quite literally almost to death.

Her frightened expression vanished and immediately transformed into a glower of fury. "Grantaire!" Éponine screamed at him. Her voice quivered with anger, much like the way lightning trembles wrathfully through the grey clouds before it strikes. She was furious, but she could not pretend that she was not relieved at the same time. "What the hell is the matter with you!? You almost ran me over, you idiot! Are you drunk!?"

He seemed to find her rage quite amusing. He had always found a woman in fury to be very appealing. It was terrifying, no doubt, but at the same time quite arousing. As he watched Éponine scream at him, he could not help but notice how darn attractive she was. He smiled as if she was not yelling at him and replied with a smooth tongue, "Not yet."

She let out something between a scoff of disgust and growl of unadulterated wrath, a sound like a rabid animal that is about to devour its prey. She rolled her eyes blatantly as she turned her back on him. Without another word, she strode off and continued on her way down the street, her steps long, her pace fast, her hips swaying as they led her body. Grantaire was captivated.

"Hey, Ponine!" he called after her. He leaned out the window to keep her in sight. He breathed in the smoky scent of his cigarette as he opened his mouth to shout to her, "Come on, I'll give you a ride."

"I can walk," she snapped back without even a glance over her shoulder.

"I wasn't asking you, I was telling you. Now get in."

Éponine ignored him. She acted as if she had not even heard him, but he knew she had. As she stepped in front of the truck in another attempt to cross the street. Grantaire revved the engine, and the truck lurched forward with a thunderous snarl. Éponine flinched and turned reflectively, afraid that she would have to jump out of the way again. She did not. The truck was resting again, and through the glass windshield she saw Grantaire laugh.

She sighed angrily through grit teeth. Groaning in annoyance, shaking her head at his childishness, and rolling her eyes in ridicule, she knew that this man was not going to leave her alone until she gave in. So she did. Se moved quickly and abruptly, like one in rage, around the truck and yanked open the heavy door. Grantaire offered her his hand, but she didn't take it. She pulled herself up into the high vehicle, which was stained with the familiar smells of alcohol and cigarette smoke. She collapsed into the passenger's seat. Her face like stone, she fixed her eyes on the dark city through the windshield, and she did not glance at the man sitting beside her. Grantaire leaned over and reached across her to grab her seatbelt, but she swatted him away with one hand and buckled herself.

Grantaire sighed softly. His heart sighed as well. Éponine sent him a hard, unmoved, pitiless, and unforgiving glare. Grantaire shifted uncomfortably, put the car in gear with the stick shift, and looked at the road. Éponine continued to glare at him until he was no longer looking at her. Yet, as she turned away from him, for some reason that she, herself, could not quite logically explain, she was suppressing a smile that was tugging at her lips.

Grantaire let his foot fall heavily on the pedal, and the truck jerked into sudden, whip-like acceleration. Éponine grunted as they sped at least ten miles over the speed limit down the road. For a moment, there was only the steady reverberation of truck, the low groan of the engine, and the sound of air rushing past the open windows. They each stared ahead, watching the road rather than each other. Grantaire was uncomfortably aware of the silence and tension that had fallen between them. She was still angry then…

Perhaps only to break this maddening silence, Grantaire tapped his finger tips against the steering wheel. He had one hand on the wheel, and the other rested in open window, grasping a cigarette between his fingers. He brought it to his lips and inhaled deeply, pulling the smoke into his lungs, filling his chest to the brim with the fiery sting. It burned his throat and irritated his lungs, but at this point he was used to both of these things, and it no longer bothered him. He let his breath out in a heavy sigh, and the truck was filled with the scent that Enjolras hated so much. If he had been here, he probably would have gagged. Éponine did not seem to mind.

"You want a smoke?" Grantaire muttered after a moment in attempt to start up a conversation. He held his lit cigarette, the same which had just been in his mouth, out and offered it to Éponine.

Hardly glancing at him, she answered stiffly. "No." Éponine was not a "smoker," but Grantaire had seen her smoking before, usually when she was with the Patron-Minette or Montparnasse (often when she was with this gang, it was not merely cigarettes that they were smoking). She also smoked sometimes when she needed something to occupy her mind and sometimes when she hated her miserable life and herself and needed to feel that fire burning her lungs. Sometimes, she breathed in the smoke and did not let it out. She held her breath and closed her eyes. Then she could feel her lungs burning up, and she perceived that she could feel her broken heart burning as well. She could feel it withering and dying into a blackened and worn out cinder. On day, when her heart was nothing more than a shriveled curdle of ash, she imagined that she would be unable to feel the pain anymore.

Grantaire let out a single, humorless laugh. "Of course not," he dryly addressed the road in front of him. He stepped on the clutch with his left foot and shifted the gearstick. "Girls can't smoke. They're too soft."

Éponine turned her head to stare at him in offense. He did not turn his head, but he was watching her out of the corner of his eye. Éponine knew this was what he wanted, but she did not care. She did not much pride left, and she would not let this swindler steal that which she still clung to. Thus, acting on the impulse of defiance and anger, she snatched the cigarette abruptly and roughly from his hand, stuffed it between her teeth, and took a long drag—it was like breathing in fire. She could feel it burning her throat and constricting her chest. She did not care. She did not cough. She liked it.

Grantaire grinned faintly and nodded in approval. As he turned his head to meet her gaze, perhaps under the false impression that they were on good terms again, Éponine blew a deep mouthful of smoke into his face. Yet, in contrary to what one might expect, rather than coughing, or cringing, or drawing away, Grantaire reacted as he might have if this pretty woman leaned over and gave him a kiss. He let out a low, long sigh, almost like a moan of pleasure, and he closed his eyes as he blissfully breathed in the perfume of the reek. Perhaps he was hoping to flatter her, to make her laugh or to make her smile, to win her over.

Éponine was not impressed. When he opened his eyes, he smiled at Éponine. She glared back at him. Then she turned away and stared stubbornly at the road once more. She drew smoke and flame into her lungs another time, and she flicked the still-smoldering cigarette out the window. It landed on side of the black road and continued to burn.

A few minutes passed in silence, silence for all but the groan of the engine and the breath of the wind. Grantaire drove around Paris with no particular destination in mind. He was supposed to be meeting the boys at the bar—they were probably already there and wondering where the heck he was—but now that he had Éponine in the front seat of his truck, his male friends were no longer priority. They could wait.

Perhaps five minutes passed in agony before Grantaire tried again. "So…" he began, unsuccessfully attempting to sound lighthearted. "What do you plan on doing tonight?"

She answered cruelly, "Nothing that concerns you."

"Nothing, great!" said Grantaire as if he had not heard that last bit. "I'm doing nothing as well. Maybe, we should do nothing together?"

"No."

"Why not?" said Grantaire. He gave her a charming—and a very tempting—grin, which she saw but did not return. "Come on, Ponine. It'll be fun. My roommate moved out last week, so we've got the entire apartment to ourselves. Just you and me. We'll have a good time."

"I said no, Grantaire. I don't want to."

"Aww, come on," he pressured her. He took one hand off of the wheel, and he reached over to tenderly stroke her uncovered arm. "You won't regret it, my love."

"No."

He let his hand travel down her body, and he began to caress her naked leg. "Why not?"

"Because I don't love you."

Ouch. This girl was a tough one. She did not put anything gently. She called it as it was, and she did not care if it was cruel. Life was cruel. And she was brutal. Ironically, that was one of the reasons he liked her so much. A smile appeared on his lips, and he chuckled softly. "Really?" he laughed under his breath. He was going to say more, but she cut him off.

"And you don't love me."

"Sure I do," he remarked, speaking as if choosing a woman to love was a matter as casual and insignificant as choosing what to eat for lunch.

"No more than you love every other woman you see."

Grantaire was quiet for a moment as he considered this and tried to decide if it was true. "Whatever," was finally the reply he settled on—whether it was truthful or not—and it made Éponine scoff. Pointedly, she grabbed his wrist and removed the hand that was rubbing her thigh. She tossed his hand off of her as if it was a dirty piece of trash that had been blown in her direction by the wind. She scooted closer to the open window and further away from him.

At her reaction, Grantaire turned to her and said bluntly, "Look, Ponine, you cannot wait around for Marius forever." Her eyes darted to Grantaire, and they blazed like fire as she penetrated him with a wrathful glare. She opened her mouth in indignation, but before she could snap something vile, he said something that hit her in the heart like a bullet, "Marius and Cosette are getting engaged. He's going to propose soon, and we all know Cosette will say yes."

The angry expression on her face turned into one of sheer pain. For a moment, Grantaire thought she was going to break down, shatter like glass, and cry. He had never seen her shed even a tear. It shocked him and startled him to think that she might weep right now, right here in front of him. It concerned him. Deep in his selfish heart, it might have hurt him. He regretted that he told her.

But Éponine did not cry. In seconds, she got a hold of herself, and she channeled her sorrow into anger. "Who told you that!?" he demanded in fury, as if she believed Grantaire had made it all up only to upset her.

"Marius."

"Mari…" Her voice faded, and her lip trembled. The expression of hurt, agony, returned to her face, even deeper this time. She looked helpless, weak, terrified. Her eyes widened, and the color drained from her skin. She looked as if someone had stabbed her in the heart, and now she was bleeding out. Grantaire had never seen her like this. As indifferent as he usually considered himself, it hurt him. Now he really wished that he had kept shut his big mouth.

"He…" she said in the softest voice he had heard all night. "He did not tell me…" Her voice broke like her heart when she said that last word.

"He did not tell anyone," Grantaire said quickly, trying to reassure, to comfort her, trying to fix what he had clumsily knocked over and broken, even when he knew nothing he could say now could undo what he had said already. The damage was done. Now there was no going back. There was no fixing it. "I only know, because I was with him when he bought the ring."

Éponine fixed her eyes on the darkness through the glass before her. She starred intently at the black asphalt as if she saw a reflection of her own fate and her own death upon it. Perhaps she did. Just like that dark street, her future was black. She nodded silently. Silence resumed its place between them for a moment. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, Éponine asked, "Has he asked yet?"

"No." But they both knew that did not matter. Cosette would say yes the second he proposed.

"When is he going to ask her?"

Grantaire answered grimly, "Next weekend when they are at the beach together."

Éponine nodded again. When he turned to stare at her, Grantaire saw no tears in her dark eyes or on her pretty face, but when she let out her next breath it shook like a sobbing body, and a soft whimpering sound emitted from somewhere deep within her throat, as if she was already crying.

"Come on, Ponine," Grantaire said gently, doing the best he could to make an attempt at comforting this girl. He was very experienced with girls, but that was one category he had absolutely no experience and no talent in: comforting a girl in pain. He did not think he had ever tried. "Forget about Marius. You don't need him. You are better off without him. You deserve someone better than that. Someone who will give you the attention and the love that a beautiful woman like you deserves."

Éponine still did not say anything. She drew in and let out a slow and heavy breath through her nose. It seemed as if, and was very possible, that she was trying to keep herself from crying. She tried to restrain the emotions that fought wildly in her chest and fought to break free. She could not cry. As much as she wanted to, she would not let herself cry. Crying was useless. Weak. It would not change anything. It would only make things worse, and it would only take from her whatever pride she still clung to. No, she would not cry. She would stay strong. At least, she would stay strong until she was no longer with Grantaire. Only once he was gone and she was alone in some dark corner of some forgotten street would she let herself fall apart.

"Ponine…" Grantaire was still driving, but he didn't care. He scooted closer to her, getting as close to her as possible while keeping his foot on the pedal. "Look, Ponine." She still did not look at him. "Marius is nothing special. He's not worth it." He reached out for her again, but this time his hand came to rest over her hand. He was a bit surprised and positively delighted when she did not pull away. Slowly, he curled his fingers around her hand. He held it tightly. "Listen to me," he said softly, looking at Éponine, looking at the road only out of the corner of his eye. What did it matter?—Éponine was watching the road for him. "I can make you forget him. I can love you better than Marius ever could." Maybe this was not the best time for a joke, but perhaps it would brighten her spirits. He gave it a shot. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm ninety-nine percent sure that Marius and Cosette are still virgins. So really he isn't as great a lover as you think."

Éponine turned her head. He looked into her eyes, and his heart rose in hope. He saw her expression, and his hopes fell again.

Éponine looked at him sternly. She said firmly and coldly, "I still haven't forgiven you."

Grantaire swallowed. He let go of her hand and placed it on the wheel. He looked out through the windshield again. An uncomfortable quiet passed between them, before he said as if oblivious, "About what?"

She shot him a cold glare. "You know what."

This was a false claim. He knew what she was referring to, of course, but he still did not know exactly what had happened. About a month ago, the two of them had a rather casual and very short-lived love affair. It was like most of Grantaire's relationships: full of pretend, deceit, deception, false hope, broken promises, and drunken declarations of love. Grantaire was a womanizer, a charmer, and a deceiver. Like the serpent. He met a pretty girl, he had a drink with her, he spoke to her with his smooth tongue of lies, he pretended to love her, he won her over, he stole her heart, he took her, and in a day or two he left her. He broke more hearts than he could count. He whispered "I love you" following more names than he could remember. On more than one occasion, a woman saw him in the street, furiously approached him, slapped him across the face, and strut off without a word. Then one of his friends would muttered, "Who was she?" and Grantaire would grumble honestly in reply, "No idea."

His fling with Éponine had not been so different from the rest. Yet, he must have seen something in her that he did not see in other women, because ever since he let her go, he had been trying desperately and vainly to get her back… not to say he didn't have relations with other women in the meantime. He did not consider himself "in love" with Éponine, but he liked her. He liked her a lot. She captivated him. Éponine was different from other girls. She was unique and interesting. He liked that about her. She was a hot flame, and every time she looked at him it ignited the fire of his passion. Perhaps he did not love her the way a man should love a woman, but he certainly desired her. He desired her more than any woman he had ever desired before. Last month, he got a small taste of her love, and ever since he had been starving with restless—even reckless, to the point of maddening—hunger for more. He wanted her. Bad.

There was a vast problem with this, however. Their one-night stand had not ended well. They were both very drunk that night, and Grantaire was drunker than Éponine. When he woke up the next morning, Éponine was already gone, she had stormed out and left him alone in his bed, she was bitter and furious, she avoided him, she would not speak to him—she had treated him coldly like this ever since—and Grantaire could hardly remember anything that had happened the night before. He did not know what he had done to get her so angry. However, he had not told this piece of information to Éponine, who thought he remembered everything just the way she did.

Grantaire grit his teeth. He hesitated for a moment and tapped his fingers against the wheel again. At last, without taking his eyes off of the road, trying to sound insouciant, he muttered, "Maybe, you could jog my memory…"

She scoffed. "If you really don't know, than you are pretty damn stupid."

He let out a heavy sigh and dragged one hand over his face. "Look, Ponine, I said I was sorry." He said he was sorry at least five times now, but not one of those times did he know what he was apologizing for. "Can't we just let it go?"

She did not budge. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because."

"Because what?"

Éponine turned to him suddenly. She glared at him with fury and hatred. Then she said bluntly and hatefully, "You took advantage of me."

"What!?" Grantaire cried. His foot slammed forcefully upon the breaks. The truck jolted to a stop in the middle of the empty road, causing them both to lurch forward in their seats. He turned to her abruptly in alarm, and he met her eyes. Éponine's face was still like stone. Grantaire's face was etched in terrified astonishment, and his eyes were overcome with panic. "No, I didn't," he immediately denied, but he looked like a man in shock who cannot bring himself to believe the horror he sees right before his eyes. In this half-second, his heart was pounding, he body became weak, his mind because and dizzy, and he prayed to whatever God might be able to hear him—he did not believe in any particular god—that her words were false.

"You know what you did," she snapped back without pity.

"But I didn't—" he stuttered. "I wouldn't— I would never! …I didn't actually _take advantage_ of you…" Like a frightened child, he whimpered helplessly, "I didn't, did I?"

Her hard expression changed slightly. Her dark eyebrows knit, and she frowned at him, puzzled by this last remark. She stared at him. "You know what happened, Grantaire."

"But I… I _did not_ … I didn't…" He closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh of frustration and defeat. When he opened his eyes again, he forced himself to look into the beautiful brown, cold, and forgiving-less, eyes of Éponine. "Look, Éponine," he began grudgingly, but he knew it had to be said, "I was very drunk that night and…"

Éponine's expression changed, and he saw a look of realization appear in her eyes. Finally, after all of this time, she figured it out. At last, she knew the truth. Very straightly, calmly, without any trance of emotion in her voice, she observed the facts, "You can't remember what happened, can you?"

Grantaire winced and looked away. "Um…" he grumbled through clenched teeth. Now he felt very embarrassed and ashamed on top of extremely guilty and afraid. "Like I said, I was really drunk… like _really_ drunk, and I—"

Éponine laughed. Grantaire turned his head, and watched her throw back her head and laugh in something between bitterness and mockery. "And you say _girls_ are too soft!" she jeered as she met his gaze with a smirk. "I drank just as much as you did, and I—"

"No, you didn't," he objected defensively. "I drank more than twice as much as you did."

"Like hell you did!"

"I did! I had been drinking all day before you even showed up at the bar!"

She scoffed under her breath and shook her head, as she turned away from Grantaire and looked into the darkness outside of the truck. "Enjolras is right about you," she said quietly after a moment.

He slowly let out a tense breath. "What does that mean?"

She still did not look at him. "You drink too much. One day you are going to do something really stupid, and you won't be able to fix it."

Silence returned.

A bit irritated and very anxious, thirsting for an answer as a dehydrated man thirsts for a drop of cold water, Grantaire shifted in his seat. When he was turned almost completely sideways, one foot still on the break, his body toward her, his arm stretched out on the seat behind them, he locked his eyes on Éponine once more. She was not looking at him. He asked flatly, "So what happened? Did I… Did I hurt you?"

"No," said Éponine quietly. She moved her head very slightly and looked at him sideways. A faint smile began to appear on her lips, and she said in an almost teasing manner, "You couldn't hurt me if you tried."

Grantaire sighed. He turned away from Éponine and looked out at the road again, even though the truck was no longer moving. He did not know what that meant. He was still unsure of what had happened. He did not know if he should be revealed or cursing himself, and begging for forgiveness, and swearing never to have another drink again. Miserably, he mumbled, "I thought you wanted to."

"I did… and I didn't."

"What is that supposed to mean? I thought you said…"

"I was drunk," she answered simply. "You knew that. But I didn't know what I was doing."

"Oh."

She turned her head. As if controlling him with some type of spell, he had no choice but to turn his own head and stare into her eyes again. She looked straight into his eyes and said starkly, "I wouldn't have been in the same _room_ with you if I was somber. I never loved you, Grantaire."

Grantaire cringed slightly. She was tough. She was harsh. He opened his mouth to reply, but no words came. What was he supposed to say to that?

"And those things you said to me were lies."

"I can't remember what I said," he admitted glumly through grinding teeth, "but I believe you."

"You don't love me."

He did not answer.

"You used me."

He did.

That cursed silence returned.

Grantaire sighed heavily. The masquerade was over. The role had been played, and he was done acting. He could not remember the last time he had looked at a woman and addressed her with complete sincerity, complete honesty, complete truthfulness, completely as himself, without a hidden intension or a wicked thought, without any interest in personal gain, without anything but an open heart and empty hands. He looked at Éponine this way now.

"Éponine, I'm sorry," Grantaire said, and these words came straight from his pained heart. She could hear the sincerity in the sorrow and the regret in his voice. She could see it in his eyes. She knew he was telling the truth. "I never meant to… I was drunk, and I…" He sighed and dropped his eyes, unable to look at her any longer. "I'm sorry," he said again. There was nothing else to say. "I screwed up… bad. Can you…" He glanced up at her as he whispered, "Can you forgive me?"

Éponine did not answer. Without a word, she turned away from him and looked out the windshield once more. She acted as if she was still angry. Yet, by the warm gleam in her eyes, by the shadow of a smile on her lips, he knew that she was not holding a real grudge anymore. She forgave him.

…

Combeferre and Enjolras said goodbye to Jehan, wished him well, promised to text—or call, in Enjolras's case—him over the summer, and they got back into the car and drove off. Feuilly had already been dropped off at his house, and only these two best friends remained.

The windows were rolled up and the air-condition was turned on, so the car was mostly silent. Only the faint hum of the car could be heard. Yet, this silent was not uncomfortable. For friends as close as these, as close as brothers, silence is no comfortable than conversation. When they were together, no matter where they were or what was happening, they were at home. They were at peace.

Combeferre glanced sideways to look at his friend. "You look tired, Enjolras," he said gently. "Maybe, you should not drive home tonight."

Without taking his eyes off of the road—Enjolras was a very careful driver—he shook his head. "I will be alright, Combeferre. Do not worry."

"Are you sure?"

He nodded. "Absolutely."

Combeferre remained doubtful. "How far is Uzès from here?"

Enjolras answered indifferently, "About six and a half hours. Sometimes seven with traffic."

This was not at all reassuring. Combeferre looked at the digital time on the dashboard. "It's past midnight now, Enjolras," he said with doubt and concern. "Seven hours from now it will be, what? seven thirty in the morning? You'll be driving all night, for goodness sake! _And_ you've hardly slept this week, studying for your exams, and cleaning your flat, and packing, and everything else… and the Revolution. You must be exhausted."

Enjolras shrugged slightly. "There won't be any traffic at this time of night. I will be on the road longer if I leave in the morning."

"Maybe, but at least I won't have to worry about you falling asleep behind the wheel."

"I have never fallen asleep behind the wheel," said Enjolras confidently. "I will be fine."

Combeferre frowned. "Why don't you wait, Enjolras? Please. For me. So I don't have to worry about you all night."

"I have no choice, Combeferre. I have to move be out of my flat by one o'clock in the morning."

"Then stay with me tonight. I don't have to move out until next weekend."

Enjolras allowed himself to glance away from the road so he could give Combeferre a small smile. "Thank you, Combeferre," he said sincerely. "But I should get home. I haven't been home since last September; I stayed on campus at Christmas. It's been almost a year." He turned his eyes ahead of him again. "You do not need to worry about me," he went on. "I will be carful. If I get too tired, I will pull over somewhere. Besides, my parents live in the country. Uzès is a small town. There are not many cars on the road."

Combeferre nodded. He was comforted by Enjolras's words. Enjolras had a way with words. Whenever he said something—even when it was something as ambitious as a revived government, a just society, and a free, truly free, country—Combeferre could not help but believe him. No one could. Not even the cynic Grantaire.

"Wow," he mused as he gazed out the windshield and considered what Enjolras had said to him. "You are right: you have not been to your home in almost ten mouths. I bet you will be glad to be home."

To Combeferre's surprise, Enjolras was silent for a moment before he answered. "I will miss you and the boys," he said at last, still looking at the city before him. "But it will be nice to see my mother again. I've missed her."

"And your father?" Combeferre said without thinking, not imagining that Enjolras had purposely left his father out of the conversation.

Enjolras's face was unreadable and his voice was like stone when he answered rigidly, "We never got along."

"Oh…" Combeferre fell silent, feeling a bit uncomfortable. He wished he had not said anything. However, at the same time, he could not help but wonder about Enjolras's father, about his past. Even to his best friend, who was practically his bother, Enjolras said very little of his childhood. Come to think of it, Combeferre did not think he had ever heard Enjolras mention his father before. Not until tonight.

When they passed the café, Combeferre asked Enjolras to pull over, saying that he wanted to get a drink. Enjolras agreed without question, and a few minutes later, Combeferre returned with two large coffees: one with sugar and cream for himself and one black for Enjolras. That was how he liked it.

Enjolras smiled as he accepted his cup. "Thank you," he said genuinely. He really did appreciate it. Of course, he would not tell Combeferre and worry him any more, but he really was very tired.

"Be carful, it's hot," Combeferre warned him as he sat down in the passenger's seat and took a sip from his own cup. Enjolras nodded and he took a sip himself. "Hopefully that will keep you awake," he added with a smile.

Enjolras nodded. He returned the smile. "It will."

They remained parked on the side of the road for the next fifteen minutes while they sipped their coffee and talked peacefully together. They were brothers, these two friends. If blood was not a boundary, they were brothers. They spent nearly every minute together during the school year, and now that summer had come they probably would not see each other very much at all. It was a sad parting. Even while they were happy, they were sad.

When it was nearing one o'clock, Enjolras sighed and started his car again. He had to get out of his flat and get on the road. He and Combeferre stayed in the same building, which was very convenient tonight and all through the year. Combeferre helped Enjolras get the lasts of his things together, load his car with bags and suitcases, and then, in the parking lot, they said goodbye.

"I'll text you," Combeferre promised Enjolras.

"Call me," he corrected. "I don't know how to text."

Combeferre smiled and nodded. "Alright," he said with a quiet chuckle. "Maybe we should teach you. I know Courfeyrac plans on it."

Enjolras shook his head and waved his hand. "Tell him not to bother. It's easier to call anyway."

Combeferre smiled and nodded. "I'll be sure to."

Enjolras nodded. He glanced at his watch, and he sighed. "Goodbye, Combeferre. I will miss you."

"I will miss you too, Enjolras. But we'll keep in touch over the summer, and I'll see you again in September."

"Before that," said Enjolras shaking his head. "All of us need to meet up sometimes over the summer."

Combeferre eagerly agreed.

They shook hands, but as if that was not enough then they embraced. Enjolras clung to his brother tightly while it lasted, and he was reluctant to let him go. He closed his eyes as he hugged Combeferre and Combeferre hugged him. He was going to miss him. He was going to miss him a lot. His heart ached just thinking about it. For a fraction of a second, he even considered giving in and saying he would stay with Combeferre until tomorrow morning. But he could not do that. He had to get home.

So, five minutes later, Enjolras was in his car again. This time, he was by himself. He was driving alone down through the dark Parisian streets, heading for the boarder of the city, heading south, heading home. The half-empty coffee that Combeferre had bought him was sitting in the cup-holder between the driver's and empty passenger's seat. Enjolras let out a deep sigh. He was tired. He was exhausted. He reached for his coffee and brought it to his lips.

...

They were both drunk—not nearly drunk as they had been on their last night together, but drunk nonetheless—when Grantaire's truck finally pulled up in front of the filthy building Éponine lived in with her parents. Yet, now they were past the euphoria of intoxication and the dysphasia was setting in. They each felt tired, groggy, and ill. When he got back to his apartment, Grantaire would go straight to bed, and he would wake up in the morning with a dreadful hangover.

He and Éponine had spent the last hour in a pub, drinking, getting drunk, and getting drunker. They passed most of the time insulting and mocking Cosette and Marius—even though Grantaire was good friends with both of them, and Éponine was deeply in love with one of them. By the end of it, they were joking, and smiling, and laughing. Even after she learned of Marius's engagement, Éponine was smiling again. That alone made this entire night worth it. It was worth every second.

Every time Éponine smiled at him, Grantaire felt his heart lodge itself in his throat and his entire body was overcome with the reckless desire to snatch her up in his arms, pull her toward him, and devour her pretty mouth with his lips. However, keeping in mind their _last_ night together, remembering the result, and constantly hearing her cold words, "I never loved you, Grantaire," in his head, he restrained himself. Now they were finally friends again, and Grantaire was not going to ruin it another time.

He frowned at the Gorbeau Tenement, the dump where the Thènardier's lived. It was an isolated place on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by abandoned homes and empty fields. (Thènardier chose to live in such a secluded place for obvious reasons: so he could conspire and commit his crimes without drawling the attention of the police.) Grantaire knew Éponine's parents would be there, probably just waiting for their daughter to walk through the door, waiting to make money off of her. Perhaps Grantaire used Éponine. Perhaps Montparnasse and the Patron-Minette used her too, more than used her but violated her and disgraced her. Still, no one used her so much as her own parents, who sent her outside into the streets in hardly any clothing and in the freezing cold, threatening her and ordering her to return with thirty francs before sunrise.

"Éponine, are you sure you don't want to come over my place tonight?" Grantaire asked turning to look at her. For the first time, when said this he was thinking of her instead of himself. "We could just watch a movie or something. Or we could just go to bed. That sounds good to me, I'm pretty wrecked. I can sleep on the couch, if you want."

"No, that's okay," said Éponine quietly. She unbuckled her seatbelt and, with much effort, weak muscles, and unsteady hands, she managed to push open the heavy door. "I want to go home." She wanted to be alone. As the carefreeness her drunkenness provided her with faded, so did her spirits. She was sad again. She was sad about Marius. She wanted to be alone. Grantaire understood.

"Alright then…" He fished his phone out of his back pocket and squinted at the bright screen when it illuminated and hit his eyes. He stared at the numbers for a moment, struggling to make them out through his blurry vision. It was past one a.m. That at least gave him a little bit of hope. Maybe the Thènardiers would already be asleep. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow," he said with a heavy heart, stuffing his phone back in his pocket and raising his eyes to look at her. "Definitely soon if not tomorrow."

She nodded once as she climbed out of the truck and closed the door. "See ya," she slurred through the open window. "Goodnight."

""Night."

She turned her back to the truck, and he watched her walk, in somewhat of a swaying line, into the building and disappeared. The door closed behind her, and he was left staring at a dark, seemingly abandoned, ruin. He sighed, and turned away.

He stepped on the clutch, shifted the stick, and turned the key to start up the engine once more. He let his foot fall heavily on the petal—more heavily than he intended, because his drunkenness was throwing off his perception and judgment—and his truck charged headlong down the empty street. He knew that he was going over the speed limit, but he didn't care. It would take him a good twenty minutes to get from here to Rue Rambuteau, where he was supposed to meet the others at the bar, and he was already running two hours late. Besides, his black truck was the only car vehicle on the road. He was not worried.

He got a bit confused, however, when he was making his way through the labyrinth of narrow streets. When he passed an open field and started moving toward the country rather than the city, he knew he had taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way. He swore under his breath and, on this narrow road and with his hazy mind, had trouble turning around his massive truck. He finally managed and with a huff started off in the direction from which he had come. He only drove for perhaps five minutes, and he became aware of an annoying vibration in the pocket of his pants. A few seconds passed before he realized that it was his cell phone and that someone was calling him.

With one hand on the wheel, one foot on the pedal, he took out his phone and tried to read the name lighting up on the screen. He couldn't. The small letters were fuzzy, and they jumbled together like links in a chain. Sighing, he swiped an unsteady finger across the screen and raised the phone to his ear. "Yeah?"

"Grantaire!" It was Courfeyrac. He was practically screaming into the other line.

"Ow! Jesus, Courfeyrac!" Grantaire snapped as he cringed. "Why do you have to scream!? You'll blow out my eardrums."

"Where the heck are you!?" demanded Courfeyrac just as loudly, ignoring Grantaire's grumbling. "We've been here for over two hours, and you're _still_ not here!"

"Yeah, sorry, I'm on my way now."

"Where are you?"

"I gave Éponine a ride home."

"That should not have taken you _two freakin' hours_ , Grantaire!"

"Yes, well, we had some… _business_ to take care of first."

"Uh-huh…" Courfeyrac muttered vaguely in reply, not sure that he wanted to know the meaning of this "business" that Grantaire referred to. He did not ask. "Is she home now?"

"Yeah, I dropped her off about ten minutes ago." Grantaire squinted into the world around him, trying to read the street signs and trying to figure out where he was. He did not recognize this place. Great. This was just perfect…

"Ten minutes!?" complained Courfeyrac in his ear. " _Seriously,_ Grantaire?" He groaned in annoyance. "Hey, guys, guess what? Grantaire just dropped Éponine off ten minutes ago." Grantaire heard the rest of his friends groaning and complaining in the background.

"Where is he now?" he heard Bahorel holler. "How much longer do we have to wait for him to get over here?"

"When will you be here," said Courfeyrac into his phone again, and he grumbled in obvious exaggeration, "If you just dropped off Éponine, it could take you another half hour to get here."

Grantaire turned the wheel, and he found himself driving down a completely abandoned road. It stretched on as far as he could see into the darkness in a straight path. There was nothing but trees lining and a few side streets merging onto the left side of the road and nothing but open fields, shadowy night, and a sky of silver stars on the right. Now, he was really lost. He had no idea where he was. He cursed under his breath. To Courfeyrac, he answered shortly, "Yeah, probably not, and _don't talk so loud!_ I already have a headache."

Silence came from the other phone for a moment. "Grantaire, are you alright?" Courfeyrac finally said, talking softer this time. There must have been something in Grantaire's voice that gave him away, because Courfeyrac's next question came bluntly, "Are you drunk?"

Grantaire grunted and rolled his eyes. "That's none of your concern, Courfeyrac," he rudely blew him off. This was as good as saying, _Yes, I am drunk._

"Grantaire!" cried Courfeyrac. In harsh disapproval, like a father scolding his child, he added, "And you're _driving?_ "

"Yes, I am driving," snapped Grantaire, getting annoyed with Courfeyrac, with everyone complaining about him drinking, about getting lost, about this entire night.

"Grantaire…"

"What!?"

"Just…" said Courfeyrac a bit hesitantly. "Just be careful."

"I always am." Even as he said this, Grantaire did not realize how heavily his foot was weighing on the pedal. The speed limit, which he could not read with his sight this foggy, was only thirty miles per hour, and Grantaire was going over fifty. His truck sped on over twenty miles over the speed limit.

Courfeyrac laughed bitterly. "No, you're not. You're _never_ careful."

"Whatever."

"Just get here safely, Grantaire. Don't do anything dumb."

"I won't."

"Trying to drive while you're drunk is dumb."

"God, Courfeyrac, who are you, my father!? Leave me alone! I'll be there soon, alright? I'm going to hang up now."

"Alright, sure. Oh, wait, Grantaire!?"

"Yeah?"

"I have to tell you something…"

"What?"

"You can't tell anyone."

"Alright, what?"

"You _cannot_ tell Éponine."

"Alright, I won't tell anyone, what is it?"

"You cannot tell anyone, Grantaire. Marius told me not to tell anyone; I just have to tell you so I can tell you not to tell Éponine."

"Alright, Courf, _what!?_ " But, with dread and regret, Grantaire thought he already knew where this was going.

"Marius told me that this next weekend he is going to propose to Cosette."

Yup. That's what he thought. That's what he feared.

Grantaire let out a heavy breath as a sickened feeling came into his stomach, partially from the large amount of alcohol he had already consumed that night but mostly from the current situation. He answered hollowly, "Yeah, I know."

"You do!? How!? Marius told you before he told me!? But I'm his _best friend!_ "

"I was with him when he bought the ring."

"Oh."

"When'd he tell you?"

"Not long ago on the phone. He told me that he wanted to go to the beach with Cosette alone so he could propose to her."

"I see."

As if he expected this to be Grantaire's next move, Courfeyrac warned him again, "You cannot tell Éponine, you know, Grantaire."

Grantaire absently tapped his fingertips against the steering wheel and gazed, although seeing very little of the world around him, through the glass windshield. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to admit, "I already told her."

" _What!?_ "

"God, Courfeyrac, would you stop yelling!?"

"Why the heck would you tell her, Grantaire!?" Courfeyrac cried in a panic. "What on earth were you thinking!? Do you know how much she loved him!?"

"She was going to find out sooner of later anyway, Courfeyrac," snapped Grantaire in offense and annoyance. "Why hide it from her only to break her heart later?"

"You should have let _Marius_ tell her!"

"What's the difference?"

"There's a big difference!"

"I don't see how."

Courfeyrac groaned furiously. "Grantaire, you are impossible!" He fell quiet and thought for a moment, and Grantaire realized that he was driving with an entire half of his truck over the yellow line. He quickly straightened out the vehicle into the correct lane. Courfeyrac asked much softer, "What did Éponine say?"

"She said… I don't know. She didn't say much."

"How did she take it?"

"Fine, I guess."

"Fine, really?" said Courfeyrac incredulously. "Did she cry?"

"No."

"Well, that's good, I guess… Did she get angry?"

"Kind of."

"What did she do?"

"I don't know, Courfeyrac," Grantaire grumbled. He closed his eyes and momentarily took his hand off the wheel to run it over his face and rub his eyes. He did not realize that he was driving over the line again. He did not realize that he was going more than sixty miles per hour. He did not realize that he was nearing an intersection. He did not even see the headlights approaching from the other direction.

…

Enjolras drank the last sip of coffee. He sighed as he set the empty container in the cup-holder. It did help to alert his senseless a bit, but nonetheless he was exhausted. Every muscle, every bone, his entire body ached. All he wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep. Yet, he refused to let his eyelids grow heavy. He had a long drive ahead of him, and he did not want to have to pull over and sleep on the side of the road. Still, if he got too tired, he would not have a choice.

He arrived at the intersection and gently stepped on the breaks. Even though there was not a single car behind him, he switched on his blinker to indicate that he would be turning right. When his little car came to a full stop, he looked both ways. The road was completely empty to the left, but to the right he could see a pair of headlights approaching. The car, although nearing quickly, was still a safe distance away, so Enjolras eased off of the breaks and put his foot on the accelerator.

He expected the approaching vehicle to slow down as he pulled out in front of it and began to turn. But it didn't. The truck barreled toward him like a rabid beast, charging at full speed with the sole desires to attack, destroy, and kill.

Enjolras's brow furrowed in concern. "God," he grumbled under his breath. Whoever was driving that car was defiantly going over the speed limit—a lot over the speed limit. In fact, as he looked at the beasty vehicle, a truck, Enjolras did not think the diver planned on slowing down. As if getting a head-start so it could ram him at full force, the truck's speed was only increasing. The driver did not plan on stopping. Enjolras wondered if the man saw him at all.

Enjolras dropped his foot harder on the accelerator and turned the wheel quickly, trying to get out of the intersection and into his lane quickly, before this maniac driver slammed into him. He had to admit that it scared him. The truck was coming at him so speedily—it was like a metal bullet flying through darkness, heading for its victim, thirsty for blood, hungry to kill—that for a moment he feared he was not going to make it in time. He did.

Enjolras sighed. He let out his breath, which he did not until now realize he was holding. His heart flooded with relief. He silently thanked God. He made it into the left lane just before the truck passed him on his right.

He cast a dark and unhappy glare at the loud truck as it blundered toward him in the other lane. Only for a moment he glowered at the vehicle and its drunken driver, a dark silhouette beyond the windshield. Then he fixed his eyes on the road again. So Enjolras did not see it coming when, just as it was about to pass him, the monstrous black truck, moving at a speed of more than seventy miles an hour, lashed out like a lion pouncing on its prey, and moved over the yellow line. As if springing to life, the truck leapt out in front of him.

For a fraction of a second, Enjolras was blinded by the headlights. His heart plummeted into his belly. Then he felt the impact.


	3. Like a Candle in the Dark

**It has been forever since I have posted anything on this website. I am so sorry this has taken me so long, and I am so grateful that you are reading this and baring with me despite how long it took me to update. My life has been crazy lately, and it still is insane. I am going to try very hard to post more regularly again. (And, I promise, I am working on the next chapter of "Between Love and Loss;" I know it is well past time I update that story as well.)**

 **Thank you all so much for understanding, and for everything else! It means so much to me!**

 **WARNING: THIS CHAPTER GETS VERY INTENSE AND A BIT GRAPHIC; IT COULD BE A UPSETTING TO SOME READERS. (Not as bad as that chapter in "Between Love and Loss.")**

* * *

CHAPTER III

~LIKE A CANDLE IN THE DARK~

Combeferre was restless. Ever since Enjolras left, he found himself unable to find peace. He was anxious. He was worried.

It was already very late when Enjolras's little red car vanished into the darkness and the glow of the taillights disappeared. Combeferre was exhausted, his body weak, and his mind drained. He knew he would be asleep the minute he climbed into bed. However, once he was lying in his room with his lights off and a blanket over him, sleep did not come. He could not sleep.

He turned on the lamp beside his bed and began to read a book. He came to the end of the first chapter and realized that he had no idea what he had just read. He went back to the beginning and read the first page perhaps five times, before he gave up and closed the book. He could not focus on the words printed on those white pages. As if French was a foreign language to him, as if he was illiterate, they made no sense to his mind. He could not comprehend them. As much as Combeferre loved books, as much as he loved to read, he could not read tonight. His mind was absent. He could not focus. He could not stop worrying about Enjolras.

He did not understand why he was so worried. Perhaps, it was because he was so tired, and Enjolras had been so tired. Perhaps, it was nothing. He told himself that it was nothing. Still, his fears would not cease. He was not comforted.

A deep sensation of dread had lodged itself in his stomach like a bullet, and it was making him sick. There was a dull aching in his gut, and a few times he felt as if he was going to vomit—perhaps he was catching a virus of some type... A bleak coldness filled his chest, like an encasement of ice covering his trembling heart. His heart was heavy like a rock, stone where there should have been felt and blood. It was weary and afraid, tired but unable to rest. Why, he did not know. He did not, in truth, believe that his instants were correct. He thought that he was overreacting, that he was mistaken. Yet, he could not ignore the dreadful omen that hung over his heart like the shadowy form of death waiting to claim his prize: another condemned soul. He knew something was not right. He knew something was wrong. Something bad was going to happen.

For the next twenty minutes, he drank the coffee he bought with Enjolras, made himself another pot of coffee, paced around his flat as he drank a mug of it, cleaned up his flat, packed his things so he could return home whenever he felt the whim, he turned on the TV and watched about five minutes of the news before he turned it off again, he poured himself another cup of coffee, he wandered to the windows, peeked around the curtains, and looked out into the dark road as if he expected to see Enjolras's car pulling into the parking lot, as if he expected Enjolras to appear at his doorstep and tell him he had changed his mind. At last, unable to stand it anymore, he got into his car and drove to the bar, where he knew some of his friends would still be.

When he arrived, he parked his car, and went into the bar, where he found them. Courfeyrac was on the other side of the bar, standing in a dark corner and speaking on the phone in a hushed tone, as if he and the person talking to him were discussing something top-secret and extremely important. The others were lined up at the bar, seated in those high stools, talking and laughing as they sipped their drinks.

"Well, look who it is!" Bahorel greeted him with a grin as Combeferre made his way over to the group, and this was followed by loud welcomes and cheers from the others. "Decided to join us, did you? I thought you said you had things to do."

"I finished," he said honestly.

He reached the bar and seated himself beside Joly, who was watching his girlfriend with a bit of distress and repeatedly whispering to her, "I think this should be your last drink. Too much isn't healthy. I don't want you to get alcohol poisoning."

"Great!" said a drunken Bossuet. "Glad you could show up!"

Combeferre frowned as he glanced around the bar and noted that one of the friends was missing. He was surprised, because this was the one person he would have expected to be there even if no one else showed up. "Where's Grantaire?"

"Courfeyrac is on the phone with him now," Joly explained. "He drove Éponine home, and…" He trailed off, thought for a moment, and added uncertainly in a manner that seemed more a question than a statement, "I guess, it took him longer than he expected…?"

Combeferre had not been there for even a full five minutes. The man behind the counter approached him to ask him if he wanted a drink. He opened his lips to answer, but before he spoke even a word, a loud voice was heard crying out from across the bar. Combeferre did not have to turn his head. He did not have to look. He knew the voice at once. He knew who was shouting. His innards turned to stone, and his heart turned to ice.

"Grantaire? Grantaire, are you okay!? What happened? Can you hear me? Are you okay!? Grantaire!? _Grantaire!_ Say something!" He swore in a loud shout, which was followed by a frightened whisper, "God…"

Feeling as if his nightmare was coming true, Combeferre leaped down from the stool and rushed across the room to Courfeyrac, who he met halfway, as he was already heading hastily toward the door. "What is it?" Combeferre cried in panic, and this question was echoed his friends who followed close behind him, leaving their drinks at the bar. "What's wrong?"

Courfeyrac made one last attempt to talk to the person on the other end of the phone, before he let out a heavy and fearful breath and ripped the phone away from his ear. "I don't know," he said, and they could hear the fear in his words even though he was trying to conceal it. He raised his large brown eyes and looked at the many faces crowded around him, staring back at him with wide orbs that reflected his own fear. "I think Grantaire was in an accident."

"An accident?" Joly repeated in sudden panic. As if to protect her from circumstance and grief beyond his control, Joly wrapped his arm around Musichetta and pulled her toward him. He held her close. "A _car accident?_ "

"Yeah," grumbled Courfeyrac miserably. His voice quivered slightly. "I think so." As he spoke, he hurried across the bar, the other following close behind, and pushed open the door. He, Combeferre, Joly, Musichetta, Bossuet, and Bahorel poured, like a flowing river, out of the bar and into the street.

"What makes you think that?" Bahorel asked, running a few steps to catch up with and stride, like a soldier marching into battle, beside Courfeyrac, who led the procession across the lot and toward the vehicles.

He gritted his teeth, as if cringing at the very memory, as if the very thought brought pain that was hard to witness. "I heard the crash." He could still hear that awful noise in his head, replaying itself again and again, like a ghost ceaselessly tormenting and haunting him. "…He had been drinking."

"God," said Combeferre.

"Jesus," Joly whispered behind him. He gripped Musichetta tighter, and he cried out in terror, "Is Grantaire hurt? Is he alright? Where is he?"

"I don't know. He was not answering me when I tried to talk to him."

At these words, they all felt a terrible sensation of dread—sheer terror that was numbed slightly and made dull by the shock of the blow—fill their insides. They would have rather Grantaire told Courfeyrac that he had been hurt: at least that way they knew he was alive. But the fact that Grantaire had said nothing… Anything, even a faint moan of pain, would have been better than silence. Unconsciousness is quiet. The grave is silent.

"Maybe the phones got disconnected," Musichetta offered, a bit hopeful and desolate at the same time.

"I don't think so," Courfeyrac said grimly, even as much as he would have loved to believe it. "It sounded like our phones were still connected, but… but no one was talking to me."

"Do you know where Grantaire was, Courfeyrac?" Combeferre asked suddenly and urgently, speaking like an officer of a leaderless army stepping up to take charge. Enjolras was the leader, but Enjolras was not here. Combeferre was next in line, so Combeferre would lead them in his stead.

"Not exactly. I have somewhat of an idea…"

"You and I will go in my car," Combeferre swiftly began dealing out commands. If they had not been so terrified for Grantaire's life, all of the friends present would have been astonished at how alike Combeferre's voice, his expression, and the fire blazing in his eyes resembled Enjolras. He drew his keys out of his pocket and slapped them down in Courfeyrac's hand. "You drive."

They reached his car, and Courfeyrac jumped into the driver's seat. Combeferre turned to the others standing behind him, staring at him at loss—frightened young soldiers awaiting orders. "Bahorel, go to the place where Éponine lives and see if you can find anything in the area. We have a better chance of finding him that way." He turned to Joly, Musichetta, and Bossuet. "The rest of you, keep trying to call Grantaire. Call an ambulance. If you get any news, call Courfeyrac and Bahorel."

With that, everyone nodded quickly and rushed into action. Bossuet, Musichetta, and Joly were all three on their phones, trying to get ahold of Grantaire, calling an ambulance, in desperation calling the police as well. Combeferre's car and Bahorel's truck took off down the streets, both drivers speeding but not caring.

As Courfeyrac stared at the road, his terror-filled eyes fixed unwaveringly on the dark city before him, the ominous gloom of the night, Combeferre pulled out his phone. Courfeyrac was too terrified to think much of it but vaguely thought it a bit odd, as it was _Grantaire_ who they ought to have been calling, when Combeferre began to dial a number and muttered anxiously, "I'm calling Enjolras."

…

The first thing he was aware of was the dull throbbing in his head and the sharp, dagger-like bursts of pain shooting repeatedly, firing like gunshots and bullets, through the back right side of his neck. He let out a low groan, a sound that came muffled to his ears. He turned his head slightly, and the pain increased. It pierced his neck as if a nail had been driven into his vertebrae. Perhaps it was this pain that awoke him. He opened his eyes.

For a moment, the world around him came as a spinning blur as his mind tumbled through the dizzying transition between unconsciousness and waking. He watched bewildering images come into an unclear focus before his eyes: the corner of a glass window, a dashboard, a steering wheel, a deflated airbag… He stared for what might have been a second or two without comprehending these things. He did not know what had happened or how he had gotten here in this vehicle. Then he remembered.

All at once, it came back to him, and it hit him like a fist in the face, a bullet in the chest. He had been driving. He had felt the impact of the collision. He had been in a car crash.

He cursed loudly. Without allowing another second to slip worthlessly past, he raised his head—another bolt of pain cut through his neck, causing him to swear again—and reached for the buckle of his seatbelt. As the belt, which had been locked securely over his body pinning him against the back of the seat, retracted he pulled the handle on the door and pushed it open. He jumped out of the vehicle.

The cool air of the dark night met him suddenly. Even more suddenly, his feet hit the black asphalt beneath them, jolting his body and hurting his neck—he had not expected his feet to meet the ground so fast; he thought it was a farther drop. He threw out his hands and caught himself against the truck, muttering another curse under his breath. He stood there for a moment, steadying himself and breathing in the clean taste of a summer night, filling his lungs with oxygen, trying to clear his aching head.

His body swayed. His legs felt a weak support beneath his body. Was it a result of the collision, unconsciousness, or injury? Or was it merely the effects of the alcohol? He was not sure. He did not think he was hurt too badly. He had evidently been knocked out when he crashed: he had probably hit his head, which he guessed was the reason for the pounding in his skull. He likely had a concussion, but he was not extremely worried about that. The only thing that really concerned him was the pain in his neck. No matter, he was conscious now, and he could move his body without difficultly; he did not think he had fractured anything; he would be alright.

He tried to think, figure out what had actually happened? He did not remember crashing into anything. At least, he had not seen whatever he had crashed into. He remembered feeling the collision. One moment he was driving down the road talking to Courfeyrac on the phone, and the next he felt his truck hit… something. He guessed it was a tree or something similar, as he had been the only car on the road.

He stepped back and closed the door. Then, dragging one hand along the side of the vehicle to steady himself as he walked, he made his way around the truck, stumbling slightly as he went, struggling to keep his balance. He was dizzy, and his legs were a feeble support beneath him. He was drunk and he was injured, and he felt as if he might collapse at any moment. He persisted anyway. He went around the front of the truck, which was bent inward, busted, damaged by the collision. That would cost a lot to fix… He doubted he would fix it. Sighing, Grantaire raised his eyes and looked across the lonely road to look for whatever he had driven his truck into. That was when he saw it.

It was a distance away; it must have been thrown backward when the vehicles collided… It had rolled completely over twice before it finally came to rest on its four tires once more. It was smashed, destroyed by the impact. The front left side, the driver's side, was utterly crushed. The front windshield was cracked, three windows shattered. Now it was on fire.

All alone on this forsaken road, surrounded by bleak forests and barren fields, lost in the middle of a cold-hearted oblivion, the entire world, under a boundless sky of shining stars, which looked down on the earth like angels that watched but did not intervene, burned a single tongue of flame, a single beacon signaling to others that did not reply, a flare, a desperate cry for help that was not seen or answered. Burning like a candle in the dark forsakenness of the night and of that desolate road was a small red car.

It was like a bullet hitting him in the heart, perhaps like his huge truck hitting him and running him over. Perhaps the impact and the pain of either of these would have felt the same as what Grantaire felt now. His legs gave out from beneath him, and he might have fallen had he not been holding onto his car. In that moment, his head was spinning, he was dizzy and lightheaded, his chest tightened and closed up, his lungs lost the capability to draw in air, his could not breathe, he could not think. The entire world was caving in on him. He was standing in the middle of the divided Red Sea as the great walls of water came crashing down on the Egyptians, drowning and crushing them—he was one of those pagans destroyed by the wrath of God.

"Oh, my God…" Grantaire heard his own voice cry in a strained and broken whisper.

However, if any God could hear him, He did not answer him. And why should He? Grantaire had never believed in God before. Or if He had acknowledged His existence, he had not cared about Him; he had not followed Him, he had not trusted Him, he had not loved Him. What good is belief without faith? Without love? To believe in a God is nothing: even Satan believes in Him. It is not enough. Perhaps Grantaire believed in God, but he never followed Him and he never loved Him. He loved the world and the selfish and sinful pleasures that it had to offer too much to give his life away to any Greater Power. Grantaire never loved the Christ, who saves His children. So why now, when it was too late, should He answer the faithless plea of a hell-bound sinner, who served only himself and only the devil?

What did it matter? If there was a God at all, if this God could hear him, if this God could help him, He would not. He would look at Grantaire with revulsion and disgrace—much the way Enjolras, who was a follower of Jesus, looked at him—and He would turn his back on him. Grantaire was alone. There was alone in this darkness with no one but the gloomy forest, the empty fields, the black road, and the burning vehicle.

There was no way of knowing how many people were inside of it. None had gotten out. The passengers were either trapped inside, unconscious, or already dead. No sound came from the fire save for the noise of the flame: hissing like the tongues of serpents, whispering like the voices of demons, flapping like the large black wings of Death.

Grantaire recognized Enjolras's car.

…

Something was burning. He could smell it. He smelled smoke. He smelled fire. The dense scent, the smoky air, was burning his nose and his sinuses, his throat, and his chest. Before he was awake, he was coughing. Coughing up mucus, and… something else, some pungent liquid that was coming up his throat and draining slowly out from his nose and the corner of his mouth…

He weakly opened his eyes. They were immediately met with a painful burn as thick smoke assaulted them. Reflexively, he closed them again, flinching and wincing. He kept them shut tightly as they began to water. He coughed again, more forcefully this time, as he was conscious now and allowed his body to do what it must in order to get the smoke out of his lungs. It hurt his chest a bit, but he ignored it. A large amount of fluid dislodged itself from his lungs, and he spat it out. It became a bit easier to breathe. Slowly, cautiously, he opened his eyes again.

He did not know where he was. He did not know what had happened.

He could smell smoke and fire: something must have been burning. He could smell something else as well. Something strong, powerful, sharp, almost metallic, vile, sickening… For a long time, he could not place such a repulsive odor. He was not sure he had ever smelled anything quite this overwhelming or this distasteful. The very scent, the way it assaulted his sinuses as if threatening to suffocate him, made him want to gag. Not until he raised his eyes and saw the smears, splatters, of deep crimson running slowly down the windshield like rain on a windowpane, like tears on a widow's face, did he realize that it was blood. Someone was bleeding. Someone was hurt.

 _My God_ , was his first thought, and his second was to find this person, whoever it was, and help him. Yet, he did not know who or where this person was. He did not know who was bleeding. He did not know who was hurt.

Bewildered and afraid—yes, he had no choice but to admit to himself, he was afraid; not for himself but for whoever it was losing what was obviously a very large and dangerous, perhaps lethal, amount of blood—he looked around him, trying to figure out what was going on. Only to add to his confusion, he saw the interior of his car. What on earth was he doing on his car? He saw the windshield, cracked and covered in blood, broken fragments of glass scattered across a wet dashboard, a deflated airbag stretched over the steering wheel in front of him; the bag was white but marked by a large red stain… He looked down at his own body, and saw that he was soaking wet. Everything from his chest down as far as he could tell was drenched in the same dark fluid.

He had no idea where it was coming from. He was not hurt; he could not feel any pain; it could not have been… It could not have been his own, as he was not even hurt. Certainly, this was not his blood… But why was it all over him? Where was it coming from? _Who_ was it coming from? It seemed to be… it seemed to be coming from his own body… It _had_ to be. He was the only one in the car. His body was the only present being of flesh and blood, mortal flesh which could be torn and mortal blood which could be spilt. He was bathing in a fountain of what must have been his own blood.

He stared. He seemed to have lost all capability to do anything else. He was unable to move or speak. He could do nothing but remain still in his seat and stare uselessly at what he saw before him, all around him, all over him… God, it was everywhere…

Numbness, emptiness like a hallow pit inside of him where his heart and insides were no longer, filled his corpse as he stared uncomprehendingly at his own body. It was as if he was in a dream, watching these things, witnessing them but not really experiencing them, not really living them. This could not have been real. He was dreaming. This was not real. It was as if he was dead already, and he was a spirit hovering over and looking down at his corpse as his soul departed. That would explain why he was unable to feel the pain.

The sea of red was filling up his car, threatening to drown him. His eyes fixed inflexibly on this bleeding flood, this death sentence, he drew a deep breath of precious air into his lungs. Pain, like a knife going into the center of his chest, tore through him. He gasped a short, sharp gasp. He bent over, clutching his chest with one hand, choking and coughing as fire devoured his lungs. He could feel them burning up inside of him, as if they were shriveling up like cinders in a furnace, constricting or being constricted as if by the serpent, shrinking into withered black crusts. It was a mouthful of smoke that he had inhaled. As he sat there cringing in pain and coughing up thick clots of foul-tasting fluids, it occurred to him for the first time that the fire must have been close by.

When at last most of the smoke seemed to be out of his lungs, he cracked open his wet eyes and turned his head. Terror struck his heart like a bolt of lightning. The car was on fire. Fire! FIRE! The passenger-side of the vehicle was already ablaze. Streaming and flapping like the tatters of a red flag, the flame billowed. It rushed into the air like a river, hissed like a snake, jeered like the demons. It reached into the sky and toward him with flaming arms and flickering hands, the flaming hands of the doomed souls trapped in hell. As if it was alive, the fire mocked him as it slowly grew larger, as it slowly moved toward him. The beast crept steadily toward its victim, prepared and eager to devour him.

It was the sight of the fire, his burning car which he was still inside, that finally brought Enjolras to his senses. All at once, like a thousand pounds falling upon him, reality hit him. He remembered driving, leaving Paris, heading home for the first time in a year. He remembered the other car, the truck, the headlights, the speeding and reckless driver. He remembered the collision.

Vaguely he could remember rolling. His gut had been filled with that horrible sensation that consumes a man as he falls through nothingness. He was tumbling through an oblivion of darkness and pain. It was like being trapped beneath the waves of ocean as the current tosses a limp body onto the coast, dragging him against the rocky seabed and slamming him against the shore. (This was his car being thrown and rolling completely over twice.) He remembered the collision, the impact, the rolling, and then… nothing after that. He must have passed out. He could remember nothing else. Now, however, he was awake. He was still in his car, and it was on fire.

Instinct for survival taking control and taking the wheel, he acted at once. His hand flew to the buckle of his seatbelt and pressed the button, and as the belt released him he made for the door. He yanked on the handle with one hand and slammed his other hand into the door to open it. It did not open. It did not even budge. The collision had slashed the door inward, and now it was stuck closed. He tried again, this time throwing his shoulder into the door as well, trying in vain to burst through it. It was useless. He could not open the door. He could not get out.

 _Jesus_ _!_

His heart lurched in terror. He panicked. Only a second later, he stopped his mind in its tracks. He could not panic: that would only make things worse. He had to remain calm. He had to keep his head. He had to find a way out of this. There had to be a way. He had to find a way out!

The driver-side door was welded shut. It would have been the quickest and the safest escape, but it was impossible. All three windows on that side of vehicle were shut tight and unbroken. His eyes darted frantically to the other side of the car. Surely he would be able to get out of the passenger door— The fire was already burning the foot of the seat, laughing at him, mocking him, blocking the exit. Beyond the fire, three windows were broken, and billowing clouds of black smoked spilt out of them, rising into the night and mixing with the gloom. He would climb through window if he must. He would get out of here. He had to.

If he went through the backseat, he could avoid the flame and get out through the glass-less window. That was what he would do. That was his only option. Springing into action, he made for the backseat—

He cried out.

Pain. Awful pain. It hit him like a bullet. When he tried to get up, when he tried to move his legs, the first bolt of pain hit him. It was sudden, and it was terrible. It was a sensation like bullets being shot up his legs. Movement pulled the trigger, and pain immobilized him. It began in his thighs and tore through his entire body, shooting up his abdominal, ripping through his chest, penetrating and shaking his whole skeleton. He could not move his legs.

Panic pouring into him and filling him rapidly, he looked down. His trousers were drenched. The fabric was engorged with blood. A red puddle was forming in his lap. "God…"The front of the car was desolated in the collision, and the dashboard had been smashed downward. It was bent and collapsed on Enjolras's legs. Like a thousand pounds weighing upon his fragile body, it was pinning down, immobilizing, and crushing his legs. Worse yet, the sharp edge of some broken metal was sinking deep into his thighs, cutting into his flesh as easily as the blade of a sword. Blood was coming up out of his thighs like water gurgling out of a spring in the earth. Now he knew where all of this blood was coming from…

Terror seized his heart. He could not move. He was trapped in this car with the fire. Burning, bleeding, dying. He was going to die in here. If he could not get out, he would die. His life would be drained with the blood or his body would be burned with the car, claimed by the fire. He was going to die if he did not get out of here. Soon! He had to get out!

Refusing to give in or to give up, he attempted to break free of these chains. He tried to move his legs. With a powerful jolt, he tried to yank them out from the grasp of the metal crushing them. The pain—the agony—hit him so hard that it blinded him. It paralyzed him. He could not see. He could not move. He could not breathe. He was unable to stop himself from shouting. A horrible cry, strangle and tortured, flew out form his bleeding mouth. He closed his eyes as tightly as he could—as if that could make the pain any less. He ground his jaws together, scrapping his teeth upon each other. He cringed as a wave of excruciation devoured him.

Finally, when the agony faded a faint bit, he forced his eyes, which were red and wet now, to open. He looked down, and he watched his wounds vomit up more blood. "God…" he whispered. He was bleeding too much. He was bleeding out. He was bleeding to death. His efforts to get away had not helped him in the least. It had only made things worse. He was bleeding heavier, and he was in greater pain. He could not get away. He could not move again. He could not move. He could not get out.

Yet the fire was growing larger by the seconds! It was spreading, moving toward him. Like a predator stalking its prey, taking its time as only to make the victim suffer longer, it was coming. In less than a minute, it would be upon him. It would burn him. It would devour him.

Panicking, not knowing what else to do, with nothing else to do, he raised his voice and cried for help. "Help!" Enjolras yelled as loudly as he could. "Somebody, help me! Please! I cannot get out! I'm trapped in the car! There's a fire!"

His eyes darted to stare in terror at the flame. It was not even a foot away from him. He could feel the heat beating upon him as a man trapped in the desert feels the scorching glare of the sun as he lies on the sand and dehydrates. He could feel the heat slowly burning his skin, like the sun burns the skin slowly. He could feel the fire licking at his feet, grabbing at his legs like the hands of demons.

 _God!_ His voice cracked and broke in panic and despair when he shouted another time, _"Help me!"_

But what use was it? Nobody came. Nobody could hear him over the revelry of this heinous flame. Nobody was coming to help him, and even if someone was to come, what was a man against a fire? What was the power of earth against the power of hell?

"Jesus!" he cried in a strained whisper, in despair and terror. The fire was growing. No one was coming to save him, and he could not save himself. Perhaps, indeed, only the Lord could save him now.

The car was filling up with smoke, toxic fumes from the fire. He could not breathe it. He tried to draw in a breath of precious air, and smoke rushed into his lungs. It invaded his body. It scorched his insides, burning the soft tissue that lined his throat and windpipe, making everything raw and bloody. He choked. He bent over, clutching his chest, coughing, gagging, and suffocating. He could not breathe. He could not breathe! Fluid could be heard gurgling inside of him, and he felt as if his chest was being torn apart from the inside out. A moment later, blood rushed up his throat and burst out his lips.

He leaned over and spat it out, choking on it all the while. His entire body was shaking madly, convulsing, trembling uncontrollably, because he was in so much pain, because he was so weak, and because he was so afraid. With his dying strength, he managed to raise his head.

"Help!" he croaked through the fluid as it churned inside of him and spilt out of him. He raised a hand and hit his palm against the window—maybe he could break the glass and get out… Sharp pain shot through his hand, his wrist, and his arm. The glass did not break (even if he could manage to break it, his legs were trapped, and an open window would be useless). Instead of an escape, he saw a red handprint—a splatter of blood—left upon the window.

"Jesus."

The fire was upon him! It was at his feet. At first, it only scratched at him, as if to torment him, to tease him and laugh at his terror. Then, it began to assault him. I sprung upon him as a beast tackles its prey. It attacked him. In the next second, his boots were on fire. Ravenously the flame devoured the leather exterior, burnt through his shoes, and started at his skin. The fire began to burn him.

"HELP ME!" he whaled like a child—frightened, helpless, pitiful. His voice was high, strained, desperate. It broke and shattered. "Please!" Now, he was begging. Strong, brave, proud Enjolras, who scarcely asked anyone to help him with anything, who refused to admit ever that he needed help, was begging like a coward. He was begging whoever might be able to hear his broken cry, he was begging God, he was begging... anyone!

"Somebody please help me!" Enjolras screamed. The fire was traveling up his legs. In seconds, it had consumed the fabric of his clothes, which were ablaze and burning like torches of white flame, and it was eating his flesh. It was burning him, devouring him, destroying him. His legs were on fire, his ankles first, then his skin, his knees, his thighs… The flame destroyed him, burning, melting, boiling his flesh and blood, causing it to bubble, and smoke, and hiss, and curdle, and crumble, and shrivel up like meat frying on a grill, like ashes in a burnt out furnace.

" _Please!_ Help me!" Enjolras whaled one more time—the desolate cry of a forsaken child—and a tear rolled down his marble cheek. Enjolras, who seemed unbreakable, was broken, and, like a helpless child, he was crying. Like a man being beaten, tortured, like one tied down to a stone table in some desolate chamber while his enemies interrogate and lacerate him, like a man being dissected while he is awake, or burned while he is alive, like a man being crucified, he was screaming. Enjolras screamed. He begged for help. He cried for mercy.

It was useless. No mercy was shown to him. There was no one to help him. No one could hear him. It seemed God could not hear him either. Perhaps the roar of the flame was too loud. Perhaps Satan was too strong. No one came. No one helped him. No one saved him. So Enjolras screamed vainly as the fire grew. As he was burned alive.

…

He found his phone on the filthy floor of his truck—he must have dropped it when they crashed. With trembling hands and twitching fingers, he dialed the number: 1—1—2.* Dazed, unable to believe that this was reality, unconvinced that this was not all just a terrible, terrible nightmare, he ran toward the burning car. He ran toward the fire.

The phone rang once.

"112, Public Safety Answering Point," said a composed voice. "Please, state which service you require."

Grantaire did not state which service he required. Instead, he screamed like a madman into the phone, "There was an accident! The car is on fire, and my friend is trapped inside! Enjolras!?" Momentarily forgetting entirely about the call-taker he was speaking to, Grantaire came upon the car. He could see a handprint of blood upon the window. "Holy hell, God-damn, my God!" he muttered in frenzied terror under his breath. His hand flew to the door—the entire front and left side of the car was bent inward, smashed and broken—and with all of the strength in his alcohol-weakened muscles, he tried to rip it open.

"Damn!" he screamed into the phone, interrupting and overpower the voice that was starting to speak from the other line. The door would not yield. He tried again to yank it open, but it was useless. He could not get it open.

"Monsieur, are you alright?"

"The damn door is stuck!" Grantaire yelled into the phone. His voice was trembling with fury and terror, helplessness, panic, and despair. "I can't get the door open, and he's trapped in there, and the car is on fire!"

"I will send ambulances, police, and firemen," the voice said urgently but—somehow—still calmly. "At what location are you?"

In haste, Grantaire put his phone on speaker, set it on the ground, and tried to open the door with both hands. As he wrestled in vain with door that would not yield, he answered in a loud voice, "I'm…" He had not idea where he was. He screamed a vile curse. "I don't know where the hell I am!" Turning wildly around, he saw the street sign not far off at the intersection. Squinting at the letters, struggling to read through his drunkenness, he relayed the information to the speaker, emergency vehicles set out, and his call was transferred to the Emergency Control Service Center, whom he spoke to briefly as he struggled vainly to get Enjolras out of the burning car.

There was no way he was going to get this door open, not with his bare hands, and the fire was only growing. He opened the passenger side door, and the fire rushed out. There was no way he would be able to get in or Enjolras would be able to get out through this door unless he had a way to put of the fire. The right side of the car was already ablaze. He would have to find a way to open the broken door.

"Please, get here quick!" said Grantaire in despair, grabbing his phone as he ran past. "My friend is trapped in the car! He's burning alive!" Then he hung up.

Carelessly stuffing his cell back into his pocket, he ran back to his truck and managed to dig a crowbar out from a pile of garbage in the back bed. He thanked God aloud without realizing it and rushed back to the flaming car. As he neared the vehicle, he looked through the window, through the blood, through the fire, and he saw Enjolras still sitting in the driver's seat, trapped, imprisoned.

If he was screaming or making any sound at all, Grantaire could not hear him. It was hard to tell, but Grantaire did not think he was moving. He remained still in his seat, motionless in the presence of fire and death. If what he saw before him was true, Enjolras was either paralyzed, unconscious, or already dead.

Grantaire's heart lurched in terror. No! He would not believe that. That could not be true. Enjolras was not dead! He would not believe it until he had no other choice. For now, he chose to believe that Enjolras was alive but in mortal danger, and if he did not do something soon, it would be too late.

He swore under his breath as he stabbed the tip of the crowbar into the narrow crease between the door and the lock. He pressed down on it with all of the strength and weight of his body. _Come on. Open! Open! God, please, let it open! Please! Jesus…_

The loud crack, a noise almost like a gunshot, of metal breaking slammed against Grantaire's eardrums; he stumbled forward; and he felt the friction between him and this door disappear. The crowbar had broken! In terror and outrage, Grantaire screamed a curse. He quickly regained his balance and raised his eyes.

Wait! No, it was not the crowbar that had broken! It was the door. Part of the door had broken, and now it was a useless flap clinging to the side of a burning car, swinging loosely on worthless hinges. The door was open. It was open!

"Yes!" Grantaire's curse was suddenly a cry of joy, and his miserable spirit actually dared to feel a faint glow of hope. Yet, there was no time to rejoice for long. Without hesitating, Grantaire tossed the crowbar, reached for the door with his bare hands—God! just the car door was hot, and just touching it was painful—and pulled it open. Thick, black, sufficing smoke and hungry, lethal, hellish fire poured out. Grantaire coughed and blinked his eyes rapidly as they were assaulted and burned. He ignored both the smoke and the fire, looked into the car... And there was Enjolras.

He was unconscious. Unconscious or dead. His body rested motionlessly in the seat, covered in blood and burning in fire. His head was turned to the side, hanging limply on one shoulder, like the head of a man who is crucified and hanging lifeless of a cross, and Grantaire found himself staring straight into Enjolras's face. His face was pale. His eyes were closed. His lips were parted slightly, and a thin stream of red was flowing form the corner of his mouth.

"Oh, my God," was all Grantaire was capable of saying, of doing. He could do nothing but call on God.

For a moment, he was stupefied, struck dumb, and paralyzed by terror and shock. The moment passed, and he rushed into action. Without second thought, he dove into the fire. He heard his own voice yelling in pain as the flames attacked his hands and arms. Instead of withdrawing, he went farther forward. Blinded, unable to see, unsure if his eyes were open or closed, he wrapped his arms around Enjolras's limp body and tried to pull him out of the vehicle. He could not.

Why!? What was going on!? GOD!

With no other choice, Grantaire released his grip around Enjolras and retreated. Swaying on his legs, choking on the smoke, ignoring pain that was burning his hands and arms, he looked wildly around and tried to discover what was wrong. Was Enjolras still wearing his seatbelt? No, it was unbuckled. Then, why— Oh!

Grantaire swore again. He saw how the front of the car had been crushed. He saw how Enjolras's legs were trapped beneath the desolated dashboard. He saw how Enjolras was stuck, bleeding, trapped. He saw how this very car had become Enjolras's prison. It had become his grave. And it was all Grantaire's fault.

"Oh, my God," Grantaire was saying again and again, deliriously, hysterically. "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! What have I done! Oh, God! GOD! God, help me! Help me!"

He was worthless now. His body was shaking all over; his limbs were limp; his mind was gone; his vision was blurring and darkening. Soon he was going to pass out. "GOD!" Grantaire screamed again. No! He could not give up! He could not give in! He could not let Enjolras die! There had to be a way… There had to be a way to get him out…

He felt as if he was drunk—wait, he was drunk—he felt as if he was dead. He was dead, and now he was a corpse without a soul or purpose lingering in the mortal world, trying in vain to commune with the living, who could not see him. Bracing himself, he stumbled into the fire again, leaned in to the car, and sank his hands into the flame. He cried out again when the fire touched his hands. Fumbling frantically through the flames, he found the dashboard, he found Enjolras's legs, which were soaked and spitting up blood like bile. With his bare hands, which the fire was already burning, he tried to find a way to free Enjolras. He tried to bend the metal, he tried to break the dashboard, he tried to free Enjolras's legs, he tried to get him out…

All was in vain. It was useless. It was hopeless.

Then, Grantaire heard the sirens.

They were like the voice of an angel. They awakened a sudden new hope in him. Grantaire sprang up and looked down the street. Already he could see the flashing lights approaching. He started shouting to the fire truck—saying what? he had not idea—and waving his arms around like one who has gone insane.

The fire truck, and an ambulance just behind it, pulled up beside the burning car, and a swarm of uniformed men rushed out. At once, in frenzied panic, Grantaire was rapidly talking to the men, but they did not listen to him. The raced past him as if he was not there. They closed in around the burning car and around Enjolras. They blocked his view. Grantaire could not see what was happening.

He started forward, running toward the car once more, but someone came up behind him and grabbed him by the arm. Grantaire turned suddenly, frightened, as if he thought he was being attacked, and he saw a paramedic. He did not even know what he was saying now, but words were falling ceaselessly through his lips, and he was speaking to the man in terror.

"He's in the car, the car's on fire, I tried to get him out, but I couldn't, I have to save him, I can't let him die, I can't let him die, I can't let him die..."

"We will handle it, monsieur," the paramedic said gently but sternly. "We will get him out of the car. You need to come with us. You need medical attention." He was still holding a firm grasp on Grantaire's arm, and he began to pull him in the other direction, toward one of the ambulances.

"No!" Grantaire shouted, suddenly hostile. With surprising strength and aggressiveness, he yanked his arm out of this man's grip. "I'm not going! I'm fine, I'm not hurt, but Enjolras—"

"Monsieur…" Other men were around him now. "Please, let us handle this. You need to come with us."

"No!" Grantaire refused again, but it was clear now that these people were not giving him a choice.

 _Oh, God!_ he thought in terror. _Where is Enjolras!? I cannot leave him! I need to get to him! I need to see him!_

He spun around and looked across the street at the firefighters, who were now trying to put out the flame as it devoured what was left of Enjolras's little red car. Where was Enjolras!? His eyes darted to a new location, and then he saw him.

He saw them slide a man—he supposed it was a man; through the blood and gore it was hard to distinguish who or what it was—on a stretcher into the back of an ambulance. The doors closed, the vehicle took off, and that fast he was gone.

* * *

 *** "112" is the European emergency number, equivalent to the American "911."**


	4. Lethal Flame

**I know I was supposed to post the next chapter of "Between Love and Loss" before I updated this story (and I am working on it, I promise) but I've been having some technically difficulties with that chapter, and finishing it has just been a very slow process. So I thought I'd finish the next chapter of this story and get it posted. So here it is.**

 **I hope you all enjoy it, and thank you all so much for all of your fantastic feedback and encouragement!**

* * *

CHAPTER IV

~LETHAL FLAME~

"Lower half crushed by the vehicle, both legs injured, third degree burns, bleeding heavily."

"He's lost consciousness; get him awake."

"Hurry! Tourniquets! He's lost a lot of blood."

The next thing he was aware of, he was sprawled out on his back, and all around him—everywhere—there was chaos. Noise blaring, sirens screaming, pounding against his eardrums, irregular beeping, people shouting, unidentifiable and frightening sounds like the whaling of demons, lights blinding him, hitting his eyes, burning them up like the fire burning his flesh, red flashes like the flames that might greet a man as he enters hell, blurry figures moving around him, frantic arms passing over him, urgent hands with syringes jabbing needles into his arms and legs. There were voices too, muddled and confused, echoing through some dark tunnel, running into stone walls and ricocheting the other way, slamming into barriers, colliding with each other, mixing, breaking, crumpling into hideous deformities. These were the voices of the damned souls wrestling in vain and in panic to escape the pit of fire they were drowning in.

He was killed in the car crash, in the fire, he thought. He died in the fire, and now he was in hell. Yet, surprisingly, he did not feel terror upon realizing this. Like one who is dead, he could not feel much at all.

"Monsieur, I need you stay awake for as long as you can. Keep your eyes open and look at me. I need you to look at me."

Who is talking? He could hear the voice, even as distorted as it was, but he did not know where it was coming from. All sounds seemed to come at him from all directions, hitting him at the same time, penetrating his ears, ringing through his skull, hurting him, torturing him, tormenting him, driving him insane. One of the blurry figures beside him moved closer to him, gliding like a phantom, and loomed over him. Time passed, and he was able to make out the face of a young—no, an old; in a bizarre way, he looked both very young and very old—man.

"This fabric is still hot; it's burning him. We need to get his clothing off."

"Maybe, we should wait until we get to the hospital."

"There is not time to wait. We must do it now."

The man spoke again, "Monsieur, can you hear me?"

This man must have been speaking to him. He was looking directly at him, into his eyes. He must have been speaking to him. So, with a terrible effort, he pried apart his dry lips and forced a hoarse, strained, withered—it seemed his vocal cords had burned up and shriveled like the rest of his ruined body—word to fall through them. "Yes."

Somewhere out of his vision, people were handling his wounded body. They stabbed a large needle into his thigh and injected something into whatever was left of his quad muscles. It felt as if they had set his leg on fire all over again. He winced in agony.

The man nodded once and spoke again in a loud, as to be heard over the blaring tumult around him, and urgent voice, "I need you to keep your eyes open and keep looking at me. Keep looking into my eyes. You need to stay awake. That's very important, do you understand?"

Very weakly, he tried to nod his head. As if he had lost all control over his body, as if he was paralyzed, as if his body was dead and only a ghost remained, he could not move his neck. He had not the strength even to nod his head. So he opened his lips, and a voice that did not sound anything like his own—a voice that rasped and crackled like an old man's, or like dried out logs as they die in the fire, rough, hoarse, strained, broken—whispered, "Yes."

"Good. I am going to ask you some questions, and I need you to answer them the best you can."

As he spoke in that calm, steady, soothing voice, hidden beneath which there must have been anxiety and terror, his hands were flying rapidly, working ceaselessly. He finished preparing whatever it was he was preparing and stuck a needle into his arm. He felt a short rush of pain as the metal barb pierced through his skin and entered his muscle, but not even his reflexes seemed to be working now. He did not flinch. His muscles did not even tense. He tried to nod and had no way to know if he managed to do so.

"What is your name?"

His hands working swiftly, the man began unbuttoning the front of his red, blood-sodden shirt. Cold air hit his bare stomach and a moment later his bare chest. It was cold.

It was a great and painful effort just to move his jaw. He answered weakly in that voice which he did not know, "Enjolras."

The paramedic grabbed something in his hand, and he saw a flash of metal, gleaming like the knife of a killer in the red reflection of the lights. It was a pair of scissors. The man cut slits down the sleeves of his shirt, and they removed it, leaving him unclothed from the waist up. Exposed, vulnerable, weak. Helpless.

"How old are you, Enjolras?"

Several others, all kneeling down around him, took multiple pairs of scissors and began cutting off the rest of his clothing, removing his shirt, his belt, his pants, his underwear... whatever was left of any of these things, as most of his clothing had burned up in the fire, and only shriveled, blacked tatters, still hot and smoking, still burning him, were left clinging to or embedded in his furious, red, and boiling flesh. His entire body seemed to be losing feeling, going numb, dying; however, he felt the pain as they pealed the cloth out of his wounds, which the fabric had sunken into. The paramedics removed the remains of his clothes. Now, he knew but only vaguely considered, he was naked. Any other time, Enjolras would have been outraged, humiliated, and shamed. Now, however, despite his modesty, his pride, and his dignity, he was too weak—too ruined—to care. What did it matter? He would be dead soon anyway.

"Twenty," he answered in a voice so faint it could barely be heard. It is astonishing the paramedic could hear him over the tornado of the sirens. Perhaps he read his lips.

"He's gone into shock," a faceless voice called urgently from out of his sight.

The man speaking to him ripped open the Velcro on a sphygmomanometer and fastened the blood-pressure cuff around Enjolras's arm as one of the other medics placed telemetry leads, circular stickers connected to colorful wires, on his naked chest to connect him to a cardiac monitor. Squeezing the bulb—the cuff tightened around Enjolras's arm—the paramedic asked, "Are you a student?"

"Yes."

Two more needles, each connected to a long IV tube, were stuck into his arm. It felt like an icy gust of winter air passing up his arm and chilling his bone as fluid rushed into his vein. He trembled.

"Where are your parents? Are they in Paris?"

"No," Enjolras mumbled—his words were becoming unclear, muddled, slurred, running together; it was hard to understand him. "They live in Uzès."

"Heart rate and blood pressure dropping," another voice declared.

"And what are their names?" said the man speaking to him. His voice remained calm and gentle. It was as if he did not hear the anxious decrees of the other medics. It was as if he did not see the disarray happening around him. It was as if he did not know this young man—this twenty-year-old student, called a man but really only a boy—was about to die before his very eyes. Did he not realize Enjolras was going to die? Did he really think there was any hope left?

Enjolras gritted his teeth as the pain in his skull increased and the feeling in his body became less and less. He could feel his life draining out of him, slipping away from him, departing into the frightful oblivion called death. It scared him. He was afraid. Through clenched jaws, he muttered, "Angèle and Jacques Enjolras."

A pair of hands concealed by white gloves lowered a plastic mask over his face. He remained still, his body tensing, afraid to move, as they positioned it over his mouth and nose. It was an oxygen mask, someone told him. "Breathe deep."

"Can you tell me their phone number?"

He did not answer. He had to think. He knew his parents' number, as it had been his number as well since the time of his childhood. He could recall it without considering it. Yet now, when they asked it of him, he could not remember. He tried to remember. He strained his aching mind trying to remember… Nothing came to him. It was maddening, trying to recall what he knew he knew but could not think of at the moment. He knew it, but he just couldn't… He couldn't remember.

"Temperature 103.6 and rising," a voice said from somewhere in the ambulance. They must have taken his temperature (he could not remember them doing so), or perhaps one the machines they had him hooked up to was monitoring it.

"I can't remember," at last he admitted, admitting defeat.

Although he did well to conceal it, Enjolras caught a glimpse of concern in the man's kind eyes. "Do you remember what day it is?"

Again, Enjolras was silent. He had to think another moment… He knew it was late spring… or early summer. Today was the last day of college, he slowly remembered. It was June then. He was driving home to see his parents when the car crashed. School was over, he was going home, it was summer, it was June, it was the last day of the semester, he was going home… So it must have been… "Friday?"

"Yes," said the man with a reassuring nod. "And do you know what month it is?"

"June."

"How about the date?"

Silence. Enjolras tried to think. His eyelids were heavy, and it was a struggle to hold them open. It was making his head spin. He let them close.

"Keep your eyes open," the man reminded him at once. "For just a little longer, you need to stay awake."

Oh. He had forgotten. With painful effort, he opened his eyes again. The dim lights that flashed in this dark room around him were hurting his eyes, burning them like the smoke that could still smell, still taste, still feel burning his nose, throat, and chest. It was hard to breathe. He could still smell blood. He could smell also a vile order so sicken he wanted to gag. The hideous reek of burning human flesh.

Something—one of the electronic deceives or monitors they had him connected to—started beeping. A high-pitched, horrible, piercing screech, crying out again and again, over and over, like a warning, like a death sentence. _You are going to die! You are going to die! You are going to die!_ It was like the timer on a bomb that is about to explode, a timer counting down the seconds he had left to live.

He tried to ignore everything that he saw and heard around him, which was difficult, and he tried to ignore his fear, which was impossible. He tried to think… What did it matter? It was not worth it. His head was hurting. He gave up trying. "I don't remember."

"Fever rising past 104."

"Pulse dropping."

 _I'm dying,_ thought Enjolras. Like his languishing body, he was numb inside. Hollow. Empty. There was a terrible cavern of nothingness inside of him, filling his corpse—perhaps because his soul had already taken wings and dislodged itself from the body that had imprisoned it for all these years… He was twenty years old, and he was dying. In that manner of thinking, it had not been so many years at all. _I am dying,_ he thought again emptily, but he could feel the grave darkness of this decree looming above him and weighing down upon him. He could feel Death, himself, looming above him, waiting.

Death hovered over him, silently beating his back wings, looking down on him and waiting to take him. Death is invisible to the human eye, inaudible to the human ear, unperceivable to those who are still alive. Only when a soul departs from this life into the next can a man, now immortal, see the Angel of Death. Now, when he was so close to dying, dying already, minutes—perhaps seconds—from death, Enjolras still could not see Death. However, he could sense him. He could sense his presence. As clearly as one can sense another mortal in a room with him, staring at him ceaselessly, Enjolras could feel the presence of Death. He could feel those cold eyes—all-seeing, unblinking—watching him, penetrating him. Without question, Death was present in that back of that ambulance. Or perhaps, if it were not the Angel of Death, the Angel of the Lord.

Feeling the Angel's presence with him, the Angel beside him, the Angel's hands on him, the Angel's arms around him, the Angel's embrace holding him, carrying him, in contrary to what he might have expected, Enjolras was not afraid. His was comforted. He was relieved. What little pain he could still feel began to fade away.

The medic who was talking to the dying student this entire time looked over his shoulder to inquire where they were. Receiving an answer, he turned back to the patient to tell him that they would be at to the hospital in only a few minutes, to tell him to hold on just a little longer. But Enjolras's eyes had already closed.

The cardiac monitor screamed.

…

"Enjolras? Uh, hey, it's Combeferre. I've been calling you for the last ten minutes, and you still have not answered your phone. I know you're driving, but if you get a chance, please call me back. I'm getting really worried. Okay… Uh… Bye." He hung up the phone.

"Enjolras still isn't answering," Combeferre said, and restless fear, dread and panic, could be heard overwhelming his voice, as it overwhelmed his face and soul as well. His innards churned in his gut like worms withering under the heat of the sun, drying out and dying on the pavement. He felt sick. He felt as if he was going to throw up. He knew something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong.

How do they know when someone they love is in danger? How do they know when he has been hurt… or killed? How does a mother know when her child is in pain, even when she is worlds away from him? Why does she receive that spontaneous feeling of dread and somehow _know_ that something is wrong? Something has happened. How does a brother know when his brother is in terrible, mortal, _lethal_ danger?

Something, some mysterious instinct that not even doctors or scientists with all of their knowledge and technology and pride have been able to explain. It is something that goes beyond what is logical and what is explainable. Yet, there is no doubt, that there is sometimes a strange, _supernatural_ even, connection between friends, families, people who love each other. It alerts someone when their friend has been hurt. It fills someone when their best friend has been killed. It is instinct. It is devotion. It is the divine power of love. Whatever it was, it was warning Combeferre now. Something was wrong. Something terrible was happening… or had happened already.

Immediately, Combeferre began pressing the buttons on his cell phone, calling Enjolras another time. He held the phone to his ear in terrible anxiety, his legs shaking, his knee bouncing, and he listened to it ring. _Come on, answer the phone! Answer, answer! Please answer, please answer. Please, let him answer the phone!_ It rang again. And again. And again. And again.

"We're sorry," the too sunny, too friendly, false, robotic-sounding woman's voice cut in at last, "the person whom you are trying to reach is not available at this time." Enjolras never set up the voicemail on his phone. So Combeferre did not even get to hear his voice on the recording. Already, it seemed, his friend was miles out of his reach, worlds away, gone. He was gone, and Combeferre had no way of getting to him, not even speaking to him. "Please leave a message after the sound of the beep or try calling again later. Thank you!" The phone beeped. But Combeferre did not leave another message; that would just be a waste of precious time. He ripped the phone away from his ear, hung up, and began calling again.

"Combeferre, his phone is probably turned off," Courfeyrac finally said. At this point, he knew it was useless. He knew Enjolras was not going to answer his phone. In his heart, Combeferre knew this too. Nonetheless, he refused to admit it. He refused to believe what he already knew to be true.

"No, it's not," Combeferre answered at once, raising the phone to his ear once more. "I can hear the phone ringing. If it was turned off it would go straight to voicemail."

"Maybe Enjolras turned it on silent then," Courfeyrac suggested. He turned the wheel sharply, and they sped off down another street. His eyes were glued to the road as he raced through the dark Parisian streets, searching in vain for any sign of a crashed vehicle, a police car, an ambulance, or Grantaire… or perhaps Enjolras. "And you know Enjolras does not answer his phone when he's driving."

"He would have answered," said Combeferre, overcome with dread and fear. Almost as if to himself, he muttered, "When he saw me calling so many times, he would have answered. He would have known something was wrong. He would have answered. He would have answered…"

"Not if his phone was silenced. He would never have heard you calling."

Combeferre shook his head. That awful, mechanical voice answered the phone, and Combeferre hung up before she could finish saying "We're sorry—"

"Something is wrong, Courfeyrac," Combeferre said. Like a man in shock, in denial, who persists deliriously even when he knows it has been far too late for a time far too long, even when he knows it is useless, it is pointless, it is hopeless, he persists anyway. He knows the truth. He knows he cannot avoid it. Like death, itself, no man can evade it. Yet he persists anyway. He refused to believe it. He called Enjolras again. "Something is wrong."

"What do you mean?" Courfeyrac felt a pang of fear like a punch in the gut, knocking the wind out of him, making it impossible to breathe. He tore his gaze away from the road and fixed his terror-filled eyes on Combeferre. "You don't think… You don't really think it was Enjolras," he said as if the very suggestion was absurd, as if he really had no doubts that this was false. Then, his voice became soft and weak, utterly helpless and afraid, as he whimpered, "…Do you?"

Combeferre gritted his teeth. He did not answer. Courfeyrac's dread became greater. His friend's silence was as clear as would be a spoken answer. Yes. He feared it was Enjolras.

Combeferre was looking down at this phone, selection Enjolras's name in his contacts, when Courfeyrac came to the intersection and turned onto that lonely road. "My God…" he heard Courfeyrac breath, and Combeferre's heart stopped. "Combeferre, look," Courfeyrac whispered.

Combeferre did not want to look. Every instinct—as human nature does not wish to see disaster, or tragedy, or blood, or death, which he detests and fears—told him to drop his eyes and stare at the ground, not to look up, to spare himself from witnessing this horrible thing. He fought against himself, his own instincts and his own mind, which he could feel resisting as he raised his face and looked through the windshield. He echoed Courfeyrac's words, "My God…"

This dark country-side road was ablaze with a chaotic muddle of lights: red and blue lights flashing over multiple police cars, white and red lights blaring over a parked ambulance, red lights sparking over three fire engines, a red glare reflecting off of the back asphalt causing the road to look like it was bathing in blood. Grantaire's large black truck was parked in the middle of the road not far from the commotion. Even from this distance and through the darkness, Combeferre and Courfeyrac could see how the front of the vehicle was dreadfully dented and busted. Quite a far away—it must have been thrown during the accident—was the other car, or what was left of it.

The fire was out now for the most part, but firemen were still around the vehicle soaking it with the contents of their huge hoses, and black smoke was rising from the car as if from the pit of hell. The car, as desolated as it was, they could tell was painted red, and on the back of the vehicle they could see the circular red, white, and blue magnet that looked the same as the badges worn by Les Amis de l'ABC. They had been with Enjolras on that day after school when he put it on the back of his car. Beside it, they recognized a sticker of a French flag with " _Vive la France_ " written in red across the center white stripe. As much as they wanted to, they could not deny it. This was Enjolras's car.

"Oh, my God," Combeferre heard Courfeyrac whisper again beside him. He, himself, was still too shocked and too terrified to say anything. He could hardly breathe.

Courfeyrac let his foot fall heavily on the pedal, and the car lurched toward the scene of the accident. Police officers immediately started toward them, waving for them to turn around and go the other way, but Courfeyrac ignored them. He drove straight past them and pulled up beside the ambulance. They saw Grantaire.

He was sitting in the back of the ambulance, the doors of which were open, so they could to see inside. There were people all around him, medics as well as police officers, blocking their view, but nonetheless they could see him. He was sitting up! That, at least, was a good sign—a great sign, in fact! Grantaire was alive, he was conscious, he was sitting up. Thank God. However, he did not look well at all. His face was stricken, and his eyes wild. He looked as if his mind was gone in frenzied panic, delirium, or shock, probably all three. He was speaking restlessly to the officers around him. He looked hysterical. The paramedics were checking his vital signs, examining him for injury, feeling his neck, wrapping bandages around his bloody arms. Oh, God, he was hurt! Yet, he could not have been hurt too badly, or else they would have taken him to the Emergency Room alright, right? Yes. Grantaire would be alright. He would survive. He would be okay. But where was Enjolras…?

"Enjolras isn't here," Combeferre said in panic.

Courfeyrac rolled down the window as one of the officers approached the vehicle. "We're their friends," he explained rapidly, and the policeman could hear the terror in his voice, see it in his eyes. "Where is—"

"They took him in the ambulance," the man answered in a solemn tone before Courfeyrac finished asking. "They're on the way to the ER, left about five minutes ago."

"Thank you," said Courfeyrac, and he turned immediately to Combeferre. "I'm getting out." Few words had been spoken between them, but much had been exchanged. Each of them understood.

Combeferre nodded curtly once, and they both rushed into action like soldiers on a battle field executing orders. Courfeyrac opened the door and hurried out of the car; Combeferre clambered hastily into the driver's seat, took the wheel, and before the door had fully closed behind Courfeyrac, who was already running across the street, he took off.

Combeferre's car disappeared into the darkness, as Courfeyrac ran across the road and approached the ambulance. When he was close enough, he could hear Grantaire speaking feverishly in a voice that sounded nothing like his own carefree, mischievous, cynical voice, but helpless, weak, and petrified. "I tried to get him out, but I couldn't. There was fire, and I— I tried, but his legs were stuck, and when I tried to pull him out, he started bleeding more, and—"

"Grantaire!"

Grantaire flinched and jumped, frightened by the voice. When he turned his head so suddenly, sharp pain shot through his neck, he cringed, and he saw Courfeyrac. "Courfeyrac!"

Without thinking or asking the medics for permission, not caring, forgetting about them entirely, he rose to his feet. He expected his friend to be as ashamed and disgraced by him as he was himself, or more. He expected Courfeyrac to yell at him, scream at him, hit him even, call him all of the rightfully terrible things that he was, tell him never to speak to him again, never even to look at him, and to storm away. Instead, Courfeyrac went straight to him and wrapped him in a tight hug.

"Grantaire," Courfeyrac said softly. "Thank God. Are you okay?"

Grantaire did not answer. After several seconds, he finally raised his trembling arms to return Courfeyrac's embrace. Courfeyrac let him go and stepped back to get a better look at him. He looked awful, but besides his arms, which were now bandaged from his wrists to his elbows, he did not look hurt. He turned to the nearest medic and asked urgently, "How bad is he hurt?"

"There are bad burns on his arms," the man replied, "second to third degree. He hit his head, has a concussion, and we don't know how badly his neck is injured."

"I'm fine," said Grantaire abruptly. He turned his head, and his terrified eyes looked straight into Courfeyrac's. "Courfeyrac," a quivering whisper fell through his lips. He appeared on the verge of tears when he forced himself to say to continue. "It was Enjolras, Courf… I hit Enjolras." Hysterically, he rambled, "I tried to get him out, but I couldn't. He was on fire! He wasn't moving; he wasn't awake… Courfeyrac, I don't even know if he was alive."

…

Combeferre sped into the parking lot of the ER just behind the ambulance. He stopped his car diagonally across three parking spaces, ignoring the lines completely, ripped out the key, and burst out the door, not bothering to close it behind him. He ran toward the ambulance and got there as the backdoors were opening and the paramedics were climbing out, taking out a stretcher and passing it into the hands of the doctors already waiting for them outside. So many people were gathered around, and Combeferre could not clearly see the person lying on the stretcher.

His heart pounding frantically in his chest, feeling as if this was all a dream, he hurried forward. He plunged into the panic, this muddle of frantic bodies. His eyes fell upon the stretcher. He saw Enjolras's still body lying unconscious upon it, and the medics were carrying him into the hospital as a corpse is carried to the site of its burial. Combeferre could not know if this man was unconscious or dead.

"Oh, my God…"

How bad was it? Lord, how bad was it!? He could not tell. They had put a white sheet over Enjolras's body, and it covered him from the chest down, hiding most of the damage. Blood was already soaking through the white cloth, turning it dark red.

No body turned their heads even to glance at Combeferre. They rushed Enjolras inside. Pushing the stretcher on wheels, they ran into the hospital, down the stark white corridors, and into on of the room. Combeferre ran with the mass of doctors, and nurses, and paramedics as they raced through the hospital, but when they got to the room, he was not allowed to go in. They brought Enjolras into the room, and Combeferre was left to stand in the hallway, looking helplessly through the doorway. He saw them take out the defibrillator. The door closed between them.

 _Oh, my God,_ Combeferre thought, he might have whispered aloud—he was not sure—as he stared at the closed door, unable to see or know what was happening on the other side of it. _His heart stopped. His heart stopped! Oh, my God, he's dead! Enjolras is dead._

He did not know how long he had been standing there, staring numbly at the door as if he expected it to open or as if he expected somehow to be able to see though it, straining his ears to hear any sound and listening only to silence, when a nurse finally approached him. She spoke to him in a soft voice, told him to follow her, and she showed him to the waiting room. He found himself in a vast space filled with empty chairs and only a few people: a young man pacing, a woman crying, and a few others whom Combeferre did not look at. He went to the corner of the room and down in a chair beside the window, though which he could see the dark parking lot sheltered by a blanket of stars. They sky was beautiful tonight, peaceful even. How, he wondered, could heaven be so calm, so _indifferent_ , while one of Christ's children was suffering like this? Did the Lord not even care that His child was dying?

He remained sitting in this chair, feeling almost in a daze, in a dream, in shock, numb, empty. He was bent forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands folded, his head bowed, and his eyes closed, as if in a position of prayer. He found himself praying. With nothing else to do, no other way to help, no one else to turn to, he turned to the Lord. He prayed. He prayed in agony. He prayed in horror. In desperation, his heart cried out to Jesus. He could feel his soul trembling. His limbs began to tremble as well. Like Christ, whose sweat was like drops of blood as he prayed in the Garden of Gotham on the night he was betrayed by Judas, arrested, beaten, tortured, and the next day crucified.

 _Lord, God, Jesus Christ, whatever happens tonight, do not let him die. Please, do not take him. Please, please, PLEASE! Do not let my friend, Your child die! He is so young, he is only a boy! Please, don't take him; please, don't take him. Let him live. If someone must die, take me instead, but not Enjolras. Please, do not take Enjolras._

He was in the midst of his prayer, fervent, painful, when he was interrupted. He did not know how long it had been going off when he finally realized that the dim tremor which had been beleaguering him for some time now, but which he had hardly taken note of, was his phone vibration in his pocket. Someone was calling him. Pausing in his prayers, he straightened up and hastily took out his phone. Looking at the screen, he saw that he had several missed called. Joly, Musichetta, Joly, Bossuet, Bahorel, Joly— He did not scroll through the list, and nor did he bother to see who was calling now. He pressed the answer button and raised his phone to his ear. "Hello?" his own voice said flatly, emotionlessly, lifelessly.

"Combeferre?" answered a voice just as void of everything, just as hallow, just as dead. It was Courfeyrac.

"Hey," Combeferre replied automatically. It was as if he was no longer in control of his own, now monotone, vocal cords. His voice was speaking on its own, and he was only listening to it. "Where are you?"

"We're in the ambulance. Grantaire's in the back with the paramedics. We're on our way to the hospital," he said in that same dead voice. They were both as corpses now, bodies living without souls, alive in flesh but dead in spirit. "Where are you?"

"I'm at the hospital. In the waiting room. I'm waiting."

"Alright."

There was a pause.

"How is Grantaire?"

"He's got bad burns on his arms. He has a concussion that they think is pretty bad, and he hurt his neck. They're going to do x-rays when we get there."

A heavy silence feel between them. They both knew what had to be asked next, but Courfeyrac was afraid to ask, and Combeferre was afraid to answer. Yet, they could not avoid it.

"How is Enjolras?" Courfeyrac said numbly.

Combeferre gritted his teeth. He did not know what to say. "I don't know," he forced himself to reply at last. "They took him back as soon as we got here, and I have not heard a thing yet."

"Did he look bad?"

"I could not tell how bad it was. He was unconscious when they took him out of the ambulance. He was covered with a sheet from the chest down. I could not see how bad he was hurt, but there was blood on the sheet."

"God."

Combeferre hesitated, unsure if he should tell Courfeyrac any more. Deciding at last that he had a right to know, he said torpidly, "I think his heart stopped."

For a moment, silence was the only reply from the other end of the phone. Very slowly, Courfeyrac finally echoed, "His heart stopped?"

"I think so," Combeferre muttered miserably. Each time he said it, it became more difficult, more painful. "I saw them getting out the defibrillator."

"What's that?" ask Courfeyrac, who was not a medical student like Combeferre and Joly but a law student like Marius and Enjolras.

"You know that machine they use to send an electrical current through someone's chest when his heart stops?"

Courfeyrac was quiet for a moment. At last, he spoke emptily, "I've seen that in movies."

"Yeah."

"They used that on Enjolras?" Combeferre heard a note of fear come into Courfeyrac's lifeless voice.

"I saw the doctors getting it ready, so I would think so. Unless it was only precautionary."

"Jesus." There was a pause, and Courfeyrac said abruptly, "Nobody has told you anything since you got there?"

"Not a word."

"Are the doctors still in the room with Enjolras?"

"That door has not opened since they brought him in."

"Hell."

"How far are you from the hospital? When will you be here?"

"Only a few minutes now."

"Alright then. I'll see you soon. I'm in the ER, by the way."

"Alright. See you. Bye."

"Bye."

He hung up.

It was perhaps five minutes later when the ambulance reached the hospital. There were people waiting for them in the parking lot with a wheelchair, but Grantaire said he didn't need it. They walked him inside, Courfeyrac by Grantaire's side. They took Grantaire straight back into room—the wounds on his arms were bad, they said, and they might require surgery—and Courfeyrac found his way into the waiting room. He saw Combeferre sitting in the corner, bent over in prayer once more. Without a word, he went to him and sat down beside him.

Combeferre lifted his head. He was not surprised when he saw it was Courfeyrac sitting beside him. He was glad. Even if it did no good, even if neither of them could do anything to help Enjolras, he was glad to have his friend by his side.

They did not speak. There was nothing to say. Without a word, Combeferre returned to his prayer, and before long Courfeyrac was doing the same. They remain like this, praying side by side, until Courfeyrac's cell phone buzzed, and he withdrew it from his pocket. "It's Joly," he said aloud without looking at Combeferre. "I suppose we should tell them all what's going on."

Combeferre nodded. "Yes."

He answered. "Hello? Hey, Joly. Yeah, it's Courfeyrac." He was speaking the same way he had when he was on the phone with Combeferre: in a slow, calm voice, an emotionless tone, distantly, emptily, like one who is in shock and cannot quite grasp the things he sees right before his eyes.

"We found them.

"Yeah, there was an accident.

"Grantaire and Enjolras.

"Yeah, it was Enjolras. He hit Enjolras… Yeah."

Only somewhat muffled by the phone, Combeferre could hear Joly's panicked and terrified voice scream, "Oh, my God! Good Lord! How bad was it!?"

"Bad. The car caught on fire. Grantaire said Enjolras was trapped inside, and he couldn't get him out until the firemen got there."

Combeferre could hear Joly exclaim something, but he could not make out what he said. He was not listening anyway.

"Yeah," said Courfeyrac a moment later.

"I'm at the hospital.

"Combeferre is here too, yeah. We're in the waiting room.

"The doctors took them back. Grantaire is not hurt too bad. He's got some bad burns on his arms. He has a concussion, and he hurt his neck, but he will be alright. Enjolras?" He fell silent. "We don't know about Enjolras. Combeferre said he was unconscious when the ambulance got here. They took him into the back, and we haven't heard anything since.

"Yeah.

"Yup.

"We don't know.

"We don't know that either.

"Yes.

"Alright then.

"I'll call you if we hear anything.

"Alright. See you when you get here.

"Bye."

He hung up.

Quiet resumed for several seconds. "Joly is freaking out," Courfeyrac said. His voice was so calm. Had one heard these two men speaking, he never would have begun to speculate that they were in any catastrophe like they were enduring. He never would have guess that two of their best friends—one at least if not two—were in danger of dying. It was the shock of it all, Combeferre remembered thinking numbly. Right now, they were both shocked, and that dulled the pain, the reality of it all. The reality as well as the pain would hit later. It would hit them full force.

"Of course he is," Combeferre answered just as calmly, just as softly. For a strange, bizarre reason that not even he could begin to fathom, he added a half-hearted joke, "His hypochondria would allow nothing else." Why was he joking? Why on earth, in heaven, or hell was he joking now, now when his best friend's life was at stake, perhaps already lost? Because he was terrified. He was terrified of what was happening, and he could not bear to face it. He could not face the truth. He could not face this hideous, horrific, hellish, reality, and so he attempted to make that monstrous beast—reality, that is—less. He tried to make it less, easier to bear with a joke.

Courfeyrac only grunted in agreement.

"Is he coming here?" Combeferre asked, turning to look at Courfeyrac.

He nodded. "Joly and Musichetta both. Bossuet too. They're going to call Bahorel and tell him what is happening, so he might come as well."

"Should we call Marius?"

Courfeyrac, Marius's best friend, knew he would be the one who ended having to tell Marius. He shook his head. "Not yet. Let's wait to see if we hear anything from the doctors."

Combeferre thought Marius ought to know now; he had a right to know. Nonetheless, he nodded, and the question was settled. He supposed they would tell Jehan and Feuilly whenever they told Marius. They spoke no more of it.

They heard nothing. They heard nothing from the doctors. They heard nothing from anyone. Alone and forgotten, they continued to wait. Twenty minutes later, Joly, Musichetta, and Bossuet rushed into the Emergency Room. They were directed into the waiting room, where they found Combeferre and Courfeyrac. Musichetta hugged Courfeyrac. Joly went straight to Combeferre—they were in the same medical classes and they interned together at a local hospital; they had become close friends—and they immediately began speaking in hushed voices. Bossuet paced the room. Bahorel got there a few minutes later, and he gave Bossuet someone to talk to. Talking was better than nothing. Anything was better than nothing. Anything to get their minds off of this cursed waiting! Waiting was torture.

At least an hour, going on two, had gone by. It was nearing four o'clock in the morning. They were all seated now. They were not talking anymore. It was silent, except for distant sounds or voices that had nothing to do with them. Some of them—all of them—were praying. Many of them were sleeping—at least, many of them were trying to sleep, closing their eyes and resting, but not really falling asleep.

"Monsieur Courfeyrac?"

All of them looked up at once, some of them rising to their feet, and their full attention was fixed on the young nurse they saw before them.

"Yes?" Courfeyrac replied at once, hastily getting to his feet.

Grantaire's injures were not as bad as they could have been, she told them. Nothing had been broken or fractured. He did, as they had confirmed before, have a bad concussion, and there were "substantial" burn on his arms, but it would not require surgery. The doctors had already treated him, and now they were running test, doing blood work. In other words, Courfeyrac thought grimly, they would soon secure documented records, congregate numbers, of the high alcohol concentration in his blood, and this case wound go from the hospital to the courthouse.

"Can I see him now?" Courfeyrac asked when the nurse had finished telling him all of this.

"He does not wish to see anybody," she replied, shaking her head.

Courfeyrac fell silent. The nurse wished them thoughts and prayers and left them. Courfeyrac sat down.

Another hour passed with nothing. No news. No information. Nothing. At last, when someone came, it was not a nurse. It was a surgeon.

"Monsieur Combeferre?" he man said softly as he approached the chair the young student was seated in.

Combeferre's heart faltered. "Yes?" he answered, rising to his feet, reacting like a soldier who has been called on by his commander and is ready to take orders.

"You are Enjolras's friend?" he asked.

"Yes."

"May I have a word with you in private?"

"Of course."

He turned his back on them all and walked across the room. Combeferre hurried after him. He followed him to a solitary corner, where the man finally turned to address him. "Monsieur..." he began slowly. His voice was solemn, heavy, grave. It possessed that dreadful, ominous tone that told Combeferre he was about to hear something very bad. Something terrible.


	5. Destruction of Fire

**Merry Christmas, everybody! I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas, and enjoy the rest of your time off of school/work if you have it (hopefully, you all have some time off:))!**

 **Once again, I apologize for the slow update, and thank you all so much for everything! I'll try to update "Between Love and Loss" soon too. (Also, sorry for give you such a depressing chapter right in the middle of the holiday season. XD) I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

CHAPTER V

~DESTRUCTION OF FIRE~

Combeferre could not wait. He asked abruptly, "Enjolras?"

The doctor gave a grave nod. "He's alive."

 _Oh, thank God! Thank God! Thank you, Lord Jesus!_ Relief poured into Combeferre's soul as clean waterfalls rush into a dry crater in the earth, turning what was desolate and barren into a glittering pool of beauty and purity. He thanked God.

"As of now, he is alive," the surgeon added grimly, "but he is in very bad condition, and his life remains continuously at risk. He is being transported to the Critical Care Unit now."

Combeferre swallowed. It felt like his vocal cords had twisted themselves into a tight and painful knot, and it made it difficult to speak. He braced himself. Against his own will, he commanded and forced himself to ask, "How bad is he?"

Bad. Terrible. The doctor told him everything that had happened. He informed Combeferre of his friend's injuries, and Combeferre thought the list would never end. It kept getting worse... It was terrible. Terrible to the point that it was unthinkable. Yet, Combeferre had no choice but to think about it. He had no choice but to face it.

"God," he breathed, when the man finally finished. He stared numbly at the floor, and he tried to wrap his mind around what he had just heard. He tried to clear his head. He was starting to feel dizzy. He hoped he would not pass out. God. He looked up and looked into the doctor's eyes. "Is he awake?"

"No, he is under anesthetics. He had to undergo emergency surgery as soon as he got here, and he has not woken up yet, which is for the better. He is on heavy medications, but nonetheless he will be in terrible pain when he awakes."

Combeferre did not even want to think about that. He did not want to think about his friend in such agony. Cringing at the very suggestion, he asked through clenched jaws, "When can I see him?"

Enjolras's friends could see him now, but only one person at a time. (When Combeferre later relayed this information to the other students, mutually, without speaking even a word, they all agreed that this one person should be Combeferre; it should be Enjolras's brother by his side when he awoke.) The surgeon also warned him about the things that he would see when he entered the CCU, which many people found disturbing. The medics would have to continue monitoring and treating Enjolras's injuries, which could be upsetting for his friends to behold. He told Combeferre that Enjolras had been unconscious since he arrived at the hospital, so the doctors had been unable to speak to him thus far. However, the paramedics from the ambulance said he had been conscious or some time on the way to the hospital, he had been speaking to them, however he was having trouble remembering things. They did not know what metal state Enjolras would be in when he awoke. They did not know what—or who—he would remember.

When he followed the doctor down those stark white corridors, over tiles that glowed in such a way that it looked as if they had just been scrubbed clean, scored and bleached, as if blood had been scrubbed off of the white floor, through that labyrinth like an ancient prison, past closed doors and dark rooms, down empty yet ominous hallways, Combeferre felt as if he was a prisoner being led to his execution. He felt as if he was trespassing on the resting place of the dead. He, who was still alive, walked silently through a tomb, being watched by the even more silent dead. He could not see them, but he perceived that their eyes were upon him. Ghosts lurked about them, the ghosts of the departed. Perhaps, soon—Combeferre and dreaded more than anything else—Enjolras's spirit would be among them.

Combeferre was afraid. He was terrified. He did not want to be in this place. He did not want to be here. He did not want to see this. Yet, at the same time, he wanted nothing more than to be at the side of his friend. So, swallowing his fear like a soldier marching onto the field of battle, marching on even though he is terrified—that is what courage is—he kept going, walking forward, putting each foot before the other, following the white coats.

They brought him to the room where Enjolras was sleeping in a drug-induced oblivion. A total of five medics—two doctors and three nurses—were still in the room when they brought Combeferre in. All of them were crowded around the bed, hiding from view the person lying in it. Combeferre's stomach churched, and his throat tightened into a knot. He approached slowly. A nurse moved out of the way as he drew near. He saw the man lying in the bed.

…

 _Beep... Beep... Beep... Beep..._

It droned on. Mechanical. Surreal. Inhuman.

 _Beep... Beep... Beep..._

Muffled. Weak. Broken. Dying. It was already dead, but it refused to admit itself so. It refused to believe that it was dead. However, nothing could change that now. It was too late now. Once the grave is met, it is too late. The stone cannot be rolled away. The dead cannot return to life.

 _Beep... Beep..._

Slowly—weakly—deliriously—it went on. The voice of something buried under the earth, half-dead, dying. It cried out for help as it made a vain endeavor to dislodge itself from the mud. Its voice was heard only by the wind, which picked it up and carried it away so the perishing would not be found. He would perish.

The wretched creature struggled uselessly to cling to his life. He refused to let go of the rope, even though there is no one to pull him up, and he was too weak to pull himself out from his grave. He was in that frightful state between life and death when one is doomed, should have been dead already, can do nothing now but die, yet he cannot die. He cannot die.

So he cries out. Again and again, he cries out for help, for death, for anything. Nothing comes. He waits, trapped between words, between life and death, between heaven and hell. Perhaps he _is_ dead. Perhaps this is hell. Perhaps he will go on like this forevermore. In torment. Suffering. Torture.

The voice continued on.

 _Beep… Beep… Beep… Beep…_

The low yet shrill moaning of an animal that has been pierced by an arrow, screaming as it fades. It lies miserable, wounded, bleeding, dying. Had someone with any heart at all, any lick of mercy, been there to hear or see the poor beast, he would have killed it just to end its suffering. Death would not permit such a thing.

 _Beep… Beep… Beep…_

The noise continued.

 _Beep… Beep…_

What was that!? It was relentless. Maddening.

He tried to move.

He couldn't.

Something held him down. Some invisible force—the weight of the earth above him; as he was dead now, and this was his grave—pressed down on him, suffocating him, crushing him. It was crushing his body, his bones, his organs, his lungs—he could not breathe!

He opened his eyes. The noise did not stop. It persisted on, that ceaseless beeping. He could still hear it, but he could not see it. He did not know where it was coming from. He did not know what it was. He could not see it. He could not see much.

His eyes were clouded. His vision was impaired by some thick, wet fog that invaded his eyes, hurting them and blinding them. The dim lights that he could see shining through the smog—blinking red dots, green lights, glowing screens, and a murky yellow glow coming from somewhere across the room (if he was indeed in a room)—hurt his eyes. He turned his head very slightly.

Pain. It hit him like a bullet in the skull. The lead ball smashed through his flesh and bones and ripped through his entire body, cutting through him like the blade of a sword, tearing his insides, shattering his bones, shredding and grinding his weak body. The pain hit him with such force and power that, at first, his breath was knocked out of his lungs, and he could not breathe. He gasped for air but was unable to receive it. It was like drowning. He could not breathe! Then, at last, life-saving oxygen rushed into his lungs, breathing life back into his dying form, bringing relief but also more pain. (As it would have been far easier and far less painful if he were simply to die.) His chest hurt. It hurt terribly, as if his lungs were scored and bleeding, as if there was a pair of deadly claws in his chest ripping them apart. Apart from being extremely thirsty—his lips were chapped and dry, in danger of bleeding; his mouth was so parched it felt like sandpapers scrapping together; his tongue was swollen and pasty, and it stuck to the insides of his cheeks and the roof of his mouth; his throat was so dry, so painfully inflamed that it felt like there was a large bulge knotted up in it, and Enjolras could barely swallow—his lungs and windpipes were sore and raw. They felt as if he had drunken acid or inhaled poison, as if they had been charred by fire.

He closed his eyes as his head spun in dizziness and pain. He felt like he was trapped in the midst of a treacherous maelstrom, being thrown about by a wrathful ocean. His head throbbed, pulsating like that infernal beeping which would not stop. (What was it!? Perhaps it was in his head, driving him mad if he had not gone mad already.) An incredible amount of pressure was trapped inside of his skull and pressing upon the insides of his head, trying to bust out of its imprisonment. He felt as if is skull would crack and spilt. His brain, it seemed, was like a ship toppling about and rolling over, wrecking and sinking, in the stormy sea. Yet, the pain in his head was far from the worst of it. He was in agony. There was so much pain coming at him, colliding with him, at once, he could not quite say where it was coming from. Everything hurt. His entire body hurt. It was like they—who? perhaps the demons; perhaps the devil— were torturing him, breaking his body piece by piece until he would, through screaming and sobbing, confess every sin he had ever committed. The pain was everywhere. Crushing him. Killing him. However, the worst of it, seemed to be coming form the lower half of his body. His lower torso, his belly, his legs…

Without meaning to, as if he had lost all control of his own body, his face contorted in agony, and he let out a weak moan. It was hoarse and broken, the feeble moan of the deer as it lies dying on the earth, the hunter's bullet still lodged in its side.

"Enjolras," a faint voice that swayed and quivered slightly said from somewhere around him, startling him a bit. Yet, he was too weak to flinch. He was too close to death to be afraid. With difficulty, he opened his eyes. A blurry image, which after a moment he recognized to be his best friend, Combeferre, moved over him.

Combeferre looked and sounded exhausted. He was. It was nearing eight o'clock in the morning, and Combeferre had been up all night. Fear for Enjolras's life would not have allowed him to sleep if he wanted to. His grief and misery, his restless worrying, ceaseless praying, pleading with God to spare the life of his brother, drained him of everything. Almost like Enjolras's face—although, Enjolras looked countless times worse—Combeferre's face was pale, his eyes tired and dark, and there were grey shadows beneath his eyes. Combeferre did not look well. Enjolras, however, looked positively terrible.

Taking great care not to touch him, or to touch the bed he was lying on, or the sheets, or the IV tubes going into his arms, or the patient-controlled analgesia connected to his IV, or the tubes going into his nose to feed oxygen to his burned lungs, being careful not to touch anything connected to, touching, or around Enjolras for fear it would hurt him even more, Combeferre leaned over Enjolras and reached across the hospital bed. He picked up the little PCA pump connected to Enjolras's morphine drip, and he pressed the button one, two, three times in a row.

Immediately, Enjolras sighed in relief as medication was released into his vein. He was still in terrible pain, but the flowing of this drug into his broken body—like water entering the roots of a dehydrated and withered flower to give it just a small bit of life—made it easier to bear. He felt as if there was a thousand pounds on top of him, pressing down on him, and crushing him, suffocating him. When Combeferre pressed that button, a bit of the weight was lifted off of him, and it became easier to breathe.

With difficultly, Combeferre raised his face and into the eyes of his friend. Enjolras's eyes were frightening to look into. It was like upon one who is being tortured in the eternal flames of hell. Combeferre could see agony—the torment—in those sunken, cold, dark, _lifeless_ eyes. The strength, the passion, the fire that usually burned courageously in Enjolras eyes was gone now. The fire had burnt out. It seemed when the firemen extinguished the flames that engulfed Enjolras's car—and Enjolras, himself—they had extinguished the flame in Enjolras's heart, as well. Now, like his heart, which seemed to have turned into a rock in his chest, like his numb soul, his eyes were empty. They were dim, dark like the ring that hung beneath Enjolras's eyes and filled his shadowy eye sockets. The light in his eyes was waning, as if his soul was departing from his body… as if he was dying.

"It's morphine," Combeferre muttered. His voice was low and raspy, as if his grief weighed it down. "There is a small amount flowing into your vein constantly, but if you press this button here, it gives you more. They have it set so you can't overdoes, so press it as much as you need." He gently placed the pump on the bed beside Enjolras's hand—his hand, which an IV tube was going into and heavily taped onto—so he could easily grab it and press the button when he wanted to. Then Combeferre sigh and looked sadly at his friend.

He already knew that Enjolras felt miserable, that he was in agony, torture. So he spared them both the pain and trouble of asking and answering. Instead, he looked woefully at his friend, who was so close to dying, still barely clinging to his life, alive so long as the cardiac monitor continued to beep, so long as God forbid Death to take him, and he tried not to let Enjolras see the pain it caused him to see his best friend—strong, brave Enjolras—in such an awful state. "I'll get the doctor," he said softly, diverting his eyes from Enjolras. He went quickly across the small hospital room, opened the door, and without stepping foot outside the room, without leaving Enjolras for even a second, leaned out into the hallway.

Enjolras vaguely heard Combeferre's voice from the other side of the wall. "Hey, Courfeyrac. He's awake. Get the doctor," and Combeferre drew into the room again, closing the door softly behind him. Feeling sick to his stomach, feeling nauseous as if he was going to throw up, simply sick to see his friend like this—to think about the agony he knew Enjolras was going through, to think about telling him everything that had happened, to tell him the devastating truth, to think about the tragedies that could happen still made Combeferre sick—he went slowly across the room and sat down once more in the chair beside Enjolras's bed.

"You need to rest," he said at last in a drained, hollow voice. That was all he could think to say. He did not want to talk about what had happened; he did not want to tell Enjolras his never-ending list of injuries; he did not want to even think about what could happen next; and he did not want to tell Enjolras that everything would be alright, because he feared it would be a lie. He did not know what else to say. Perhaps there was nothing else. Enjolras needed to rest. The doctors would do what they could. His friends would stay with Enjolras and pray. And the rest was up to God. That was all they could do.

For the first time, as now it was clear that he was in the hospital and that—at least for the time—he was still alive, Enjolras looked down and through unclear vision observed his own condition. He was, as he had suspected, lying in a hospital bed, and he was surrounded by many machines and monitors, beeping and flashing at him, hurting his ears and his eyes. There were two IV tubes going into his right arm, one at the inside of his elbow and the other going into a vein on the top of his hand. There were tubes going into his nose also, up his nostrils and down his throat, one end of it attached to a ventilator—a machine that blew air into his lungs and forced them to continue breathing—and the other inserted into his windpipe. His arms from his biceps to his knuckles were enveloped in bandages, with only small gaps in the wrapping (at the bend of his arm and the top of his hand) so the IVs could go in. Electrodes were attached to his chest with sticky pads, and wires were coming out from under his clothing to connect him to the heart monitor. He was dressed only in a thin hospital gown in which he felt exposed and vulnerable, but a light sheet covered him from his hips down, providing him with a little more comfort. He could not see his wounds; as the doctors made sure to cover them. He could not see the damage that had befallen his languishing body. However, because of the amount of pain he was in, he knew it was bad. It was terrible.

He drew in a deep breath. It felt strange, the air rushing into his lungs and forcing them to expand, this machine that was breathing for him. He could hear the air moving loudly through the tubes in his nose, being expelled from the machine and rushing into his body. It was extremely uncomfortable and also painful—even though they had him on heavy drugs to dull the pain as much has possible—to have that plastic tube going up his nasal cavity and down his throat, and even with the machine to help him, breathing hurt his chest—his lungs and his ribs. He grunted softly and winced as he exhaled. Then he opened his eyes again and looked at Combeferre.

"Combeferre?" Enjolras whispered. (Because the doctors needed to talk to him, they had made sure the ventilator tubes would not impair his vocal cords.) Combeferre sighed in relief. Enjolras remembered his name. He knew who he was. That, at least, was better than it could have been. But Enjolras's voice was faint, and it trembled. It was weak and scared. For a moment, Combeferre thought Enjolras was going to cry. He did not, however. Even now, he would not allow himself to shed a tear. …At least, not in front of Combeferre.

"What, Enjolras?" Combeferre answered at once, anxious to grant his friend's any wish—knowing, trying but unable to pretend otherwise, that this wish might be his last.

Enjolras closed his eyes, struggling to cope with the pain, struggling not to moan, or faint, or scream, or cry, and with terrible effort he managed to mutter, "Can you call my mother?" His voice broke like frail glass hitting stone pavement when he spoke that last word.

"Of course, I can," Combeferre answered quietly, his own voice shaking slightly—but the thought of calling this woman and telling her that her son had been in a car accident and that he was now in danger of dying made Combeferre's insides twist into knots. "We were going to call her already, but no body knew her phone number."

"The number is programed in my phone," said Enjolras. His voice was so faint, so weak. It was painful simply to hear him speak. Combeferre tried not to cringe. It was as if he, himself, could feel his brother's agony.

Very quietly and grudgingly, he answered, "You're phone was destroyed in the fire, Enjolras."

"Oh." He should have realized that. Of course, the fire destroyed his phone. The fire destroyed everything. It destroyed his phone, his car, his body, _him_ … perhaps it had even destroyed his seemingly unconquerable spirit.

Slowly and reluctantly, Combeferre began, "If you can remember her phone-number…"

"It's…" Enjolras began confidently, but he fell silent abruptly. He tried to think. He tried to remember. He strained his throbbing mind, which made his pulsating head hurt even more. Unable to hide his pain, he cringed.

"If you can't remember," Combeferre started to say, but, in haste, Enjolras interrupted and began rambling out numbers that Combeferre knew were incorrect. What Enjolras gave him was not even the right number of digits, and the area code Enjolras produced (33-1) belonged to Paris, not Uzès. Yet, Combeferre knew Enjolras would not be able to rest—he would not let give up—until he thought of the number. He was stubborn, and even now he would not admit defeat. So, when he finished dealing out numbers (Combeferre recognized pieces of the students' as well as his own phone-number mixed in with the lot of them), Combeferre nodded and said he would call Enjolras's mother as soon as he got a chance. Then he could see doubt in Enjolras's eyes as he wondered if he had given Combeferre the wrong number.

"That might not be right," Enjolras said slowly after a moment.

"I will try to call her," Combeferre said at once, trying to save Enjolras from straining his mind and hurting himself anymore, "and if it is not the right number I will tell you."

Like a scared, innocent, and helpless child, Enjolras asked, "Can you call her now?"

Combeferre did not know what to say. He knew already that this was not Enjolras's mother's phone-number. However, he did not want Enjolras to know this, because his dying friend would exhaust himself trying to think of the correct number, and in doing so he might drain himself of whatever little life he had left. So Combeferre did not know what to do. He was spared however, perhaps by the grace of God. The door opened, and two doctors followed by two nurses entered room.

Immediately, they swarmed upon and surrounded Enjolras, and Combeferre back away from the bed to give them room. The doctors briefly told Enjolras who they were, that he was in the hospital, and that they were here to help him, and they immediately began to ask him questions: how did he feel, how bad was the pain, on a scale of 1 to 10 how bad did it hurt (Enjolras hardly hesitated before he answered 10; despite his pride, this was by far the worst pain he had ever experienced and there was no sense to pretend otherwise), where was the pain the worst, could he describe the pain in his body, could he describe the pain in his head, did he know where he was, could he remember what had happened, what was the last thing he could remember, could he remember the date, could he remember this, could he remember that… Enjolras could not remember many of the things the asked him to recall, but he had no trouble remembering all of his friends. Even if the crash had killed him, even if he was dead, he would not have forgotten them.

At last, almost a half-hour later, they finished questioning him. Enjolras sighed softly in relief, because every time he had to answer, every time he tried to speak, it hurt his throat terribly. Silence fell over the room. The nurses' hands flew as they recorded all of this on their clipboards. The doctors turned to one another and spoke in hushed undertones. Combeferre watched and waited in anxiety. Enjolras closed his eyes and hoped the drugs would pull him under again soon. He did not know how much more of this he could bear.

The doctors decided not to tell Enjolras of his injuries yet. It was best they gave him more time to recover first. Right now it might be too overwhelming. There was no need to cause him any greater distress. Not now. So they increased the flow of sedatives going into his IV, and within the minute Enjolras slipped into unconsciousness once more.

Combeferre could not bring himself to watch so he stared at the floor as they lifted Enjolras gown and removed his bandages, displaying his gruesome injuries, as they checked all of the wires and tubes going into him, the monitors connected to him, as they checked his vitals signs, as they checked and attended to his wounds. When they finished, they put clean bandages on his wounds, covered him with the sheet, and left the room. Combeferre was left alone again, waiting for his friend to rise from the dead.

…

He was sitting in his chair, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands folded, his head bowed, and his eyes closed, as if in prayer. He had been praying. He did not realize that he was beginning to fall asleep until his phone buzzed, and, with a start, he jolted suddenly awake. It was still dark in the room, as there were no windows and the only lights were the dim ones blinking on the monitors around Enjolras's bed. However, it was past twelve o'clock noon.

Before he so much as glanced at the phone in his pocket, his eyes bolted to look upon the man lying in bed before him. Because the heart monitor was still beeping steadily—a maddeningly annoying sound that had become music to Combeferre's ears—he knew Enjolras was still alive. His heart was still beating. He could still hear the robotic breath of the ventilator, so he knew Enjolras was still breathing. He looked up, and saw him still sleep, having not moved from the last time he saw him. Combeferre sighed in relief. Reassured that his best friend was still alive, he reached into his pocket and turned his attention to his phone.

He did not recognize the number lighting up on his screen. It was a 33-4 number, an area code which Combeferre was not familiar with. Dread flooded him, his stomach turned sour, and his heart turned to stone as he realized who this might be calling him. Yet, he knew he had to answer the phone, even though he did not want to. So he did. Raising it to his ear, he spoke softly, "Hello?"

"Combeferre?" the pretty and gentle but also anxious and scared voice replied from the other time.

That confirmed Combeferre's fears. He rose immediately from his seat and went to the other side of the room, putting as much distance between him and Enjolras was a he could, not walking Enjolras to wake up by the sound of his voice, and if he did awake not wanting him to hear this conversation. "Yes," he answered grudgingly, keeping his voice as soft as he could.

"This is Madame Angèle," the woman hastily went on to tell him, "Enjolras's mother."

Combeferre knew her. He had only met her a couple of times. At the beginning of each semester when the students were settling in their rooms, she was always there to help Enjolras move into his flat. She had visited Enjolras a couple of times as well. She met Combeferre, who had been Enjolras's best friend for a long time now. Madame Enjolras was a wonderful woman. Always kind, always good, always putting others before herself. She was much like her son, but without his fiery temper, without his reckless anger, without his brutal judgment, and without his refusal to forgive. While Enjolras was the ally of justice, his mother was the friend of mercy.

Combeferre did not know what to say. He hesitated for less than a second, and Madame Angèle was speaking again. "Do you know where Enjolras is? He was supposed to come home last night, and he never did. I keep calling him on his cell phone, but it's not even ringing. I guess that means his phone is turned off? I am getting very worried. Do you know where he is? Is he still at his flat?"

"I, uh…" Combeferre began slowly. It was only too clear by his voice that something was wrong, that something was very wrong. He was sure she realized that. His mind was racing but unable to find an answer. He did not know what to say. He did not know how to tell her. "Actually I'm glad you called," he finally muttered. He glanced across the room at Enjolras, who was still asleep. "I tried to call you, but no body knew you phone number."

"Why?" she cried, suddenly panicked, "What happened? What's wrong?"

Combeferre closed his eyes and covered his face with one hand. In the darkness, with great difficulty, he forced himself to answer, "There was an accident…"

"Oh, my God…" he heard her whisper, to herself or to God, and to Combeferre she asked frantically, "Where is Enjolras? Is he alright? Is he hurt? Where is he?"

Telling her was even worse than telling his friends. This was worse by far. Combeferre would have rather been anywhere doing anything than standing in this hospital room and talking to Enjolras's mother. He would have rather been the one unconscious and dying in that bed. But, of course, he would have. If it were at all possible, he would have taken Enjolras's place in a heartbeat.

He gritted his teeth. "He's in the hospital. The Intensive Care ward. I'm with him now."

"Good Lord Jesus." She let out a soft whimper sound that might have been a stifled sob. Combeferre could only imagine her now, holding the phone to her ear with one hand, covering her mouth with the other, or grasping for forehead, pacing the room in terror and panic, praying to God and cursing fate at the same time, cursing herself, because somehow parents always found a way to blame it on themselves, panicking, crying, despairing. "Is he awake!?" she cried as soon as she had regained the ability to sleep. "Can I talk to him? How bad is he hurt?"

"He's…" Once again, Combeferre did not even know where to start. He did not know which would be more difficult, trying to tell Enjolras or trying to tell his mother. He glanced at Enjolras again to make sure he was sill asleep. He was. Sighing heavily and burdensomely, silently asking God to help him get through this, he closed his eyes and spoke with a heavy heart, "Bad." His voice was no more than a strained whisper, weak and broken, when he added, "He was hurt very badly."

"Oh, my God. How badly!?"

There was an entire list of injuries that Combeferre would have to report, but he did not know where to begin. He did not even know where to start. At last, after hesitating and stuttering, he decided to start at the beginning. He told Madame Angèle to sit down. She obeyed. He told her.

He began at the beginning. He told her how it had gotten so late but Enjolras wanted to drive home anyway, how Combeferre tried to convince him to stay, but he refused. He told her that Enjolras had been hit by a drunk driver (he did not mention Grantaire's name, or the fact that the drunk driver was their friend), that the car caught on fire, that Enjolras was trapped inside the vehicle for long time before the ambulance got there. Everything else he told her was what the doctors told him.

Enjolras's heart stopped when they were in the ambulance, and the paramedics managed to revive him with CRP. It came close to stopping a second time when they got to the hospital, but they were able to correct his heartbeat with the defibrillator. As soon as they got to the hospital, Enjolras was taken into the ER for emergency surgery. He had to be given a blood transfusion and put on life-support. As of now, he was still alive.

The entire lower half of his body, from his stomach to his feet, had been attacked and devoured by the fire. There were bad burns on his arms as well, but only his forearms required skin-grafting. Most of his skin from his hips down had been burt off completely, and the muscles, especially his quadriceps, had been badly damaged. The doctors had already performed an emergency allograft, using the skin of a cadaver to clothe the raw flesh that still slung to Enjolras's bones. More surgery, more procedures, and multiple stages of grafts would be performed in the future as Enjolras's real skin began to heal and grow back.

Both of Enjolras's legs had been badly damaged; they had been crushed by the smashed vehicle, and a broken piece of metal had cut deep into his thighs like the blade of a sword. This required surgery as well. The femur bone in both of his legs had been fractured. The wounds were closed now, but the muscles were still badly damaged (the doctors had done what they could to repair them). Enjolras would be unable to walk for a long time. …There was a chance that he might not ever be able to walk on his own.

He also hit his head, suffered a severe concussion, and it seemed to be affecting his memory. Whether in the car crash or whether it was when they were giving him CPR (it was difficult to say which), two ribs on the left side of his chest and one rib on the right side had been fractured. His broken ribs, however, were one of his lesser injuries. His lungs were much worse. The inhalation of so much smoke and fire had burned his throat and airways and lungs dreadfully, and now he needed the ventilator to breathe. His heart was beating at a mostly regular pattern now, which was a good sign… at least, it was a reason to hold onto the hope that Enjolras would survive.

When Combeferre finally finished telling Madame Enjolras of her son's injuries, he thought hard to make sure that he had not forgotten anything. "I think that is everything," he said at last.

Silence came from the other end of the phone.

Combeferre waited.

Still silence. He began to wonder if she had hung up the phone. Hesitantly, he opened his lips—he glanced at Enjolras again—and said her name softly, "Madame Angèle?"

Nobody answered. Combeferre was about to sigh and hang up, thinking that she was gone, when a quivering voice whispered, "Are you with him now?"

"Yes," Combeferre answered softly.

Madame Angèle drew in a trembling breath, and Combeferre knew she was crying. Trying not to sob, she whimpered, "Can I talk to him?"

"He's asleep. But when he wakes up I will call you back."

In desperation and helplessness, she asked, "Have you talked to him at all?"

"Yes, he was awake a few hours ago."

"Was he talking to you?"

"Yes. He was talking."

Every time she spoke, her voice quivered and cracked and shattered, like her heart, and Combeferre could almost see the tears running down her cheeks. "What did he say?"

"He asked me to call you, but he couldn't remember your phone-number."

"He couldn't remember? Has he forgotten a lot?"

"Not a lot," quickly said Combeferre, which was more or less true. "Only things that do not matter, like dates and things. He could remember all of us. It might just be the drugs going to his head; they have him on heavy medication."

Madame Angèle let out a quiet whimpering noise as she tried to stifle her weeping. "Is he in a lot of pain?"

Combeferre did not answer. He opened his mouth, but stopped before any sound left his lips. What was he supposed to say to that? Was he to lie to her? Would it be a greater sin to tell her the truth? He could not tell this woman the truth; the truth was too painful. The truth was too lethal. He swallowed the knot in his throat and tried to sound honest. "They have him on a lot of pain medications, so he can't feel that much."

Combeferre heard her sigh in relief. At the same time he felt a pang of guilt and a sigh of relief in his own heart.

"What hospital are you at?" Madame Angèle finally asked in that same broken voice.

Combeferre answered flatly, "Pitié-Salpêtrière," which was one of the largest hospitals in Europe.

"I'm coming to see him," she said. "It's almost seven hours to Paris from here, so I will not get there until tonight."

"I will let Enjolras know when he wakes up."

"Thank you, Combeferre," she said softly. A moment later, she added even softer, in a voice that told Combeferre she was breaking down again, "When he wakes, Combeferre… will you tell him that I love him? …Just in case." _Just in case I do not get there in time. Just in case I am too late to tell him myself. Just incase I never see him again._

Combeferre's heart throbbed. "Of course, I will," he tried to answer evenly, but his voice cracked, and he was suddenly in danger of crying himself. He could feel tears rushing into his eyes and fighting recklessly against them, yearning to spill out onto his cheeks. He forced them back with all of the strength and will he had left. He would not let himself cry while he was on the phone with Enjolras's mother; he would not be that weak. He had to be strong. For her. And for Enjolras. He cleared his throat quietly, and he forced his voice to be strong and confident when he spoke next: "I will call you also and let you talk to him."

"Oh, thank you, Combeferre! Can you call on our cell phone? Because I'll be in the car?"

"Of course, what is your number." Combeferre wrote it down as she told him. "I will call you as soon as he wakes up."

"Thank you," she whispered again, and she could say no more.

Combeferre could hear her crying, despite her efforts to smother her sobs. "Alright then," he said, knowing it was time to end this call. Everything that could be said was said. "I will see you tonight then. I will let you know if there is any news."

"Thank you, Combeferre."

"Of course. See you tonight then. Drive careful. Bye."

"Bye," she whispered.

Combeferre hung up. He programed her number into his phone and then their cell number as well.

The nurses returned several times to check on Enjolras and his injuries within the next hour in a half, and Enjolras remained unconscious. Combeferre got a text from Courfeyrac asking for updates. Combeferre texted back, and said Enjolras was still asleep, they still hadn't told him yet, and his mother was going to the hospital. Courfeyrac relayed the news to the others, and everyone was relieved. If Enjolras was not going to make it, at least he would be able to see his mother first.

Not fifteen minutes later, Enjolras began to stir. Combeferre scooted his chair closer to Enjolras's bed and watched him anxiously. He watched Enjolras very weakly open his eyes. "Hi, Enjolras," Combeferre said softly and gently, hoping it would comfort Enjolras to know that he was still by his side. Combeferre clicked the button on the PCA pump again, and more morphine entered Enjolras's blood stream. Enjolras sighed softly as they drug brought him a bit of relief. Then, with dark, red, and wet eyes, he met Combeferre's gaze.

Combeferre forced a weak smile. It was difficult, since every reflex wanted to cringe instead. "I talked to your mother," he told Enjolras quietly.

For the first time, a light—faint but doubtlessly present—came into Enjolras's cold eyes. Just slightly, his spirit lifted. It seemed a bit of life returned to his dying soul. "Really?" he croaked hoarsely, but nonetheless Combeferre could hear the gladness, the relief in his voice. His mother was coming. Enjolras was surprised, as he was worried that he had given Combeferre the wrong phone-number. Anxiously, he asked, "What did she say?"

"She's coming here to see you," Combeferre answered. "I talked to her a couple hours ago. She's on her way now."

Enjolras nodded. He was very glad his mother was coming. Knowing that brought him relief and comfort. Even though he hated for her to see him like this—it would break her heart to see her only son in such a state—he knew it was for the best. If he was going to die, he wanted to at least see her first.

"She also told me to tell you that she loves you."

Even as badly as his body hurt, pain relief even stronger than morphine flowed into his heart. A small smile appeared on his lips, and joy, dimmed by pain, gleamed in his sickly eyes. "Thank you, Combeferre," Enjolras whispered.

Combeferre nodded and dropped his gaze. It did not seem right that they kept thanking him. He had not done anything. He was helpless. His friend was dying, and he could do nothing to save him. He could do nothing to help.

"You mother asked me to call her when you woke up," he said, meeting Enjolras's eyes once more. "She wants to talk to you on the phone. I told her I would call, but if you do want to talk, I can text her for you instead."

Very slightly, Enjolras shook his head. That slight movement hurt. He tried not to let Combeferre see him wince. "She doesn't know how to text," he muttered with difficulty—it was difficult to talk, especially with that piece of plastic in his throat, choking him every time he opened his mouth. "I'll talk to her."

"Are you sure, Enjolras? You don't have to. She doesn't need to know that you woke up."

"She deserves to know," Enjolras replied, confident even though he was so weak. "Besides, I want to talk to her. I might not get another chance, at least for a long time."

Combeferre's heart plummeted into his stomach when his friend said this. Even if Enjolras was trying to be discrete in his meaning, Combeferre saw it clearly. He might not get another chance to talk to his mother, because Enjolras feared he was going to die before she got to the hospital. It would be a long time before he got to talk to her again, because this would be when both of them were dead.

Without a word, Combeferre took out his phone and called the number he had programed into his contacts. He called Enjolras's mother and raised his phone to his ear. It only rang once, and she answered. "Combeferre?" her fearful voice ask urgently and immediately.

"Uh, hi, yeah, it's me."

"Enjolras?" she demanded before he could say anything else. "Is he alright? Is he awake?"

"Yes, he just woke up."

"He did!" she exclaimed. Her voice was a distressed muddle of joy and fear. "Can I talk to him!?"

"Yes, he wants to talk to you. I'll get him…" Combeferre rose to his feet, stepped closer to the bed, and raised the phone to Enjolras's ear. He held it there for him, and Enjolras did not protest. He did not even try to hold the phone himself. His arms did not move from where they lied resting in the bed bedside him.

Enjolras made an honorable attempt to make his voice sound strong and calm and painless when he spoke, but he failed. A weak, shaky, feeble, rasping whisper fell through his lips, and his mother heard her son's dying voice. "Hello?"

"Enjolras! Oh, my baby!"

Enjolras knew immediately that she had started to cry. Trying again to make his voice stronger (and failing again), he answered quietly, "Hi, Mama."

Madame Enjolras cringed at the sound of her son's voice. She could hear the ventilator pumping air into his lungs. She could hear the pain in his weak voice; she could practically feel it, herself. It hurt her. It hurt her heart. There is nothing that hurts a mother more than to see her child in pain. "Sweetheart, I'm on my way," she promised him urgently. "I'll be there as soon as I can, it will probably be a few more hours, but I will be there soon, I promise."

"Alright," he answered flatly. He did not know what else to say.

"Oh, baby," his mother cried woefully. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I'm so sorry this happened to you. I'm so sorry…"

"Don't be foolish," Enjolras replied. He close his eyes as he spoke. "This is not your fault."

As if she had not heard him say this, she hastily went on to ask, "Are you in a lot of pain, sweetheart?"

Enjolras did not hesitate for even a fraction of a second. He he answered at once, as if it was the truth, "No, not a lot. They have me on morphine, so it isn't that bad." That was a lie. Combeferre had never heard Enjolras lie so blatantly or so easily. However, for the sake of his mother, Enjolras lied without regret.

"Really?" his mother replied in surprise, and Enjolras could hear a bit of relief in her sorrowful voice. "Combeferre said that too, but I was afraid he was wrong."

Again, Enjolras lied. "Combeferre was right."

They talked for at least fifteen minutes, before the nurses came into the room, and Enjolras's heart fell, because he knew he would have to hang up. Combeferre asked for five more minutes. They agreed and went out, closing the door behind them, so Enjolras could say goodbye.

"I love you, baby," his mother told him softly. Her voice trembled, and he knew she was crying. Despite her efforts to hide it, he could hear her breathing heavily and stifling sobs. She told her only son, "When you were born, I held you in my arms, and I looked at your little face, and I knew that you were a gift from God. You are my little angel. The best thing that has ever happened to me. And now—" She had to pause to swallow down her sods and get a hold of herself. "Now you have become a great young man. I am so proud of you, my son. I love you so much. I love you more than you could ever know."

Enjolras opened his dry lips, and when he spoke, his voice broke. His heart broke at the same time. All at once, everything crashed down over him, and he was too weak to fight against it. "I love you, Mama," he whispered. His voice was that of a child. Tears came into his eyes, and for the first time in his life, Combeferre saw Enjolras cry. He pretended that he did not notice, but he saw. He saw Enjolras's eyes and nose and cheeks turn red, and his usually-fearless blue eyes fill with tears. He saw a tear fall from his eye and glisten like diamond on his cheek. Enjolras wanted to say more, but he could not. He knew if he tried to speak now, she would know that he was crying, and he could not let that happen. He could not hurt her like that. So he did not say anything.

"I will be there soon," his mother promised another time.

Enjolras swallowed the knot in his throat and was silent for several seconds, choking down his emotions. At last, in a very weak voice, he answered, "Alright."

"I love you, son."

"I love you, Mama."

"Hold on, baby. I will be there soon."

"Okay."

"I love you," she said a third time. "Bye."

"Bye."

Combeferre slowly drew the phone away from Enjolras's ear and hung up. He sat down in the chair and pretended to be checking something on his phone, so Enjolras could let another tear fall and dry his eyes. It hurt to move his arm, but he did so anyway. He raised his left arm (because there were no wires or tubes going into it), wiped the tears off of his face with his bandaged hand, and forced back the tears fighting to come forth in his eyes. He drew in and let out a heavy breath. It trembled like a leaf in the wind. He had perhaps two minutes to get a hold of himself, and the nurses came back into the room.

Combeferre backed away from the bed so the nurses could talk to Enjolras, check his vital signs, check the equipment around him, and make sure everything was running as it was supposed to be—the machines and Enjolras's body. Combeferre watched from a distance, and he prayed silently to God.

 _Lord, have mercy. If You must take him… please, wait until his mother gets here. Let her see him first. For the sake of Your son and hers… do not take him. Not yet._


End file.
